India has beaten England in the second of the five-match Test series at Edgbaston. The hosts have never won a Test at the venue before but managed to do so on Sunday, and they have done so emphatically. Defending 608 runs, they have bundled out England for a mere 271 runs, which made the margin as big as 336 runs.
“It is more historic because very few teams would have won against England in England with such a huge margin in their home conditions. Whether it’s Australia or South Africa, any team would have gone to some other country and won with such a big margin rarely,” former Indian cricketer Ajay Jadeja said, speaking on Sony Sports.
“The biggest change that has been seen, it’s not that you have won for the first or the last time, but anger used to be seen in the team earlier. We saw so many people talking, and when wickets fell at the ground, a sort of smile was seen, a sort of happiness was seen. The anger that used to be there wasn’t seen. I am happier with that. The purity for each other was seen,” he added.
Calm and composed
Former England captain Nasser Hussain has praised the 25-year-old for his tactical acumen as well for being calm and composed in his time as the Indian Test captain and has also termed Gill as a different character than Virat Kohli. Gill, who played knocks of 269 and 161 runs in the Edgbaston Test also became the seventh batsman to score centuries in his first two Tests as captain.
“He’s always going to be calm and composed. You just listen to that interview. He has got a very low heartbeat. So, he is not going to be a Kohli type character. He has got a low heartbeat but that can help. Look at all the crowds here today. Look at all of India watching on. You may need someone just to calm the team. He did some subtle things, which we would not do. You know, Akash Deep bowled beautifully from this end. This morning we thought he’s going to start from this end (Pavillion end). He starts him up at the other end. And it worked. So, there were tactical things in the game that he did in the game as well that really worked. The most important, get runs. That’s his number one job. And he’s got a shedload of runs,” Hussain said while speaking with Sky Sports.
