It is crazy what a belief and faith can do. And we saw the live example of it on the last day of the Oval Test between India and England. England needed 36 runs while India were in search for four wickets and India ended up claiming closes t margin victory for the very first time in their history of Test cricket.
After concluding victory on the fifth day of the recently concluded The Oval Test the captain Shubman Gill said that his side was pretty confident to win the game and they knew the English side is under pressure now.
“Yeah, we were pretty confident,” Gill said at the post-match presentation. “Even yesterday, we knew that they [England] are a little bit under pressure. We just wanted to make sure that they’re feeling the pressure throughout. Pressure makes everyone do things that they don’t want to, and we just wanted to make sure that they’re feeling the pressure throughout.
“I think the way both the teams played in the entire series, every day coming on day four, day five, and never really knowing which team is going to win… it shows that both the teams came up with their A game and were very happy to get over the line in this one.”
Despite Joe Root’s assertion that England would benefit from using a heavy roller on the fifth morning, Siraj and Prasidh Krishna collaborated to deny Jamie Smith and the tail any rest.
“When bowlers like Siraj and Prasidh are bowling like that then 35 runs is also too much,” Gill said at the post-match press conference. “As a batsman, you are under pressure as you feel the ball is doing something and it takes just one ball. And that is what we were reminding them about frequently. If the conditions are like this and the momentum is with you, then 30-35 runs is enough, then you know it is a matter of one or two balls falling in the right place and the game will get over there and then.”
Gill said that India never thought about taking the second new ball, considering the movement both his strike bowlers had been getting since day four. “Also, we had the wicket-taking option on this wicket,” Gill said. “If they had to make the runs, they would need to score boundaries. We knew they were under pressure because in such a position the batting team is under pressure because it is a matter of one ball.”
Talking about Siraj, Gill said that a bowler like Siraj is a captain’s dream.
“Yes, definitely, he’s a captain’s dream”, Gill said of Siraj. “Coming in five Test matches, every ball, every spell that he bowled gave his all out, and every captain, every team wants a player like him. We are very fortunate to have him in our team.”
Besides Siraj heroics, Gill had a captain series for his side. He scored 754 runs in ten innings only second-highest for a captain behind Don Bradman’s 810 against England in the 1936-37 Ashes.
“Feels very rewarding,” Gill said. “I worked pretty hard before the start of the series. There were certain things that I wanted to work on as a batsman, and it was my goal to be able to be the best batter of the series. And to be able to accomplish that goal feels very satisfying and very rewarding.
“I think once you are sorted mentally, you would be in a good space. But you’re only sorted mentally when you’re feeling technically correct. So, I think they’re both kind of correlated. If you feel like you’re getting in good positions, you’re always mentally more stable.”
Having started the new WTC cycle with a series-levelling win, India are currently third on the table with 28 points in five matches. “This series was very important for us because the kind of maturity every player would feel [at] the end of the series would really help us in the long run in this WTC cycle,” Gill said.
Many issues were raised before Gill’s India arrived in the UK in June, including whether his side had the manpower and expertise to take on Ben Stokes’ team. India leaves with the joint series two months later. Gill gave head coach Gautam Gambhir credit for boosting the team’s self-esteem.
“At the start of the series Gauti bhai [Gambhir] said: ‘yes, we are a young team, but we don’t want to be looked at as a young team; we want to be looked at as a gun team’. And the way we played it today showed us why we are a gun team, and we have gun players like him [Siraj] in our team and that’s what makes this team so special.”
