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As Virat Kohli and Joe Root rightly said in the post-match presentation and press conference, this series has been a great advertisement of Test cricket. Kohli even went on to term this as a "revival of Test cricket".
The scoreline does say 4-1 to England but the series has been tightly contested. Players from both the teams have played with passion and made this series remarkable. The series has been a memorable one for England with Anderson going past Glenn McGrath and a true legend in the form of Cook retiring from the game but unfortunately for India, it has been another match and another series of what could've been.
Make no mistake about it, India has fought valiantly throughout, until the last session of this last Test match. Even when India was 1-3 down in the series and 5 wickets away from another defeat, Rahul and Pant rattled England with their centuries. In the end though, it went England's way, which unfortunately for India, is the only thing that matters. So here are the 9 reasons why India lost the test series.
#1 Team selection
Right from the start of the series, selecting the right and balanced playing 11 was a problem for the Indian team. Not having Cheteshwar Pujara at Edgbaston, selecting Kuldeep Yadav as an extra spinner when the situation demanded an extra seamer at Lord's, selecting
Ashwin who was clearly not 100% fit at Southampton and persisting with Hardik Pandya as an all-rounder despite him not being able to make an impact. All of these selection anomalies affected their chances of winning.
#2 Preparations
At the start of the tour, Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri both stressed over the fact that having the ODI and the T-20 series before the test series helped them gain experience for test matches in the English conditions.
But as they soon found out, red ball Cricket is a different ball game altogether. As to their surprise, the practice they did for the test series in those limited over matches helped them very little and all of the batsman barring Virat Kohli faltered at Edgbaston.
Lack of practice matches was also the reason that affected their performance in South Africa.
#3 Constant chopping and changing
This has been the problem for quite some time now. Even in ODIs, they are not able to find a stable batting order due to this constant chopping and changing.
There are no questions that Kohli likes impactful players. Players like Dhawan and Rohit Sharma who can change the match in a short span of time. Rahane was dropped for Rohit Sharma in South Africa and here in England Pujara was not included for Dhawan at Edgbaston.
This constant chopping and changing is hurting their confidence. Players can't play freely if they are worried about their place in the side.
#4 Toss
For quite some time now experts are talking about giving the option to the visiting captain in place of having a toss of the coin.
The toss is something which isn't in control of anyone but it's hard to ignore over the fact that it has been a major factor in deciding the outcome of this test series. In all the 5 Test matches Joe Root won the toss and had an advantage at the start of each test match.
#5 Not finishing the tail
Indian bowlers have bowled really well throughout the series. Bumrah, Shami, Ishant all of them have been brilliant with the ball. On a number of occasions in this series, they've blown away the English top and middle order.
But not being able to clean up the lower order has been a major problem for them. England's lower order made crucial contributions throughout the series and have won them matches. Contributions from the likes of Curran, Buttler lower down the order has proved to be the main reason for their victories.
We often heard commentators saying in this series that the real batting of England starts from number 6.
#6 Not capitalising on key moments
There were a number of moments in this Test series where India were fairly on top and in a dominant position. But they've failed to capitalise on those key moments where they could've easily batted or bowled England out of the game.
At Edgbaston, Southampton and even in this last Test match they let England come back into the game on a number of occasions.
England, on the other hand, won all those key moments of these matches.
#7 Top order failures
The openers apart from the third Test match have failed to give good starts. Often in this series, we've seen 2-3 wickets falling with the team score being less than 20.
You can't expect a comeback everytime from the middle order.
Nottingham was a good example where both Shikhar Dhawan and KL Rahul gave India a good start and India went on to win the match.
But more often than not the middle order has been exposed to the new moving ball and have been left to do a lot of work.
#8 No consistent batsman
Other than Virat Kohli, no one from the Indian side has been consistent in terms of batting. There have been performances from the likes of Pujara, Rahane and others but no one has consistently stood up along with Virat Kohli. He is the best batsman in the world but in the end, it is a team game and one individual cannot do much.
Whereas in the case of England there hasn't been a single stand-out performer. There were contributions consistently from everyone.
#9 The all-rounder conundrum
It's hard not to think and imagine what could've been if India had an extra specialist batsman like Nair or Vihari in place of Hardik Pandya in the 4th inning chase at Edgbaston in a first Test match or at Southampton in the third test match. The Indian team are trying so hard to make Hardik Pandya into a perfect all-rounder.
In process of which his role is still not clear. He has a lot of potentials and also gave a match-winning performance at Nottingham but with India's bowling being at an all-time best, it would help India to have a specialist batsman in place of Hardik Pandya for at least now.
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