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England trails India 2-1 in five-match Test series© BCCI
Former England cricket team captain Michael Vaughan believes Ben Stokes and company have “complained too much” about DRS decisions in the Ranchi Test series against India. Vaughan has been openly critical of the DRS calls but believes it is not the reason why England are currently trailing 1-2 in the five-match series, with the fourth Test tilted heavily towards the hosts. In his column for The TelegraphVaughan wrote that England may feel that big decisions have gone against them, but they have allowed the game to slip away from them in both Rajkot and Ranchi after solid starts.
“I think England have complained about it too much in this series. Yes, there have been a couple of decisions that seem strange. Ollie Pope has had a couple of LBWs in the first innings of the last two Tests. Zak Crawley has also had a couple, in which Kuldeep Yadav caught his leg earlier in Vizag, and in Rajkot in which the match referee sought out Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum to explain that there had been a small error in the images shown on the screen”, Vaughan wrote.
I understand how in the high-pressure environment of a massive Test series the world can feel like it’s against you, but that’s not why England are in the situation they are in in this game or this series. This is because, just like in Rajkot, on the moving day, the third day, they let the game slip away. “They need to think carefully about why this is happening, and it’s really not because of the DRS, even though Joe Root is a very important player and his decision today was very marginal,” he added.
Dhruv Jurel’s defensive masterpiece found a perfect match in Ravichandran Ashwin and Kuldeep Yadav’s destructive symphony of spin as India took decisive control of the fourth Test.
India moved away from the stumps, having managed 40 runs from the target of 192 runs without losing a wicket. Rohit Sharma (24 batting) and Yashasvi Jaiswal (16 batting) would be confident that the team will achieve the remaining 152 runs without much theatrics.
However, it was Jurel who started India’s resistance movement with a defiant 90 that came in 149 balls and 211 minutes. He took the hosts to 307 in their first innings from 219 overnight in seven.
In their second Test, England simply did not have any answers to the questions posed by Ashwin (5/51), his 35th five-wicket haul in Tests, and Kuldeep Yadav (4/22), being bowled out for a meager 145.
(With PTI inputs)
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