April 18, 2026

India Lose A Test They Should Have Won

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2025-06-25 11:33:31

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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack

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The excellence displayed by top order batters was nullified by unimaginative bowling and sloppy fielding as India went down to England by 5 wickets in the first Test at Leeds. The new, young, Indian team under Shubman Gill displayed collective brilliance in batting with 5 centuries in the match and scores of over 400 in the first innings and 300 in the second, although the late order collapses in both the innings were a matter of grave concern. India lost the last 7 wickets for just 41 runs in the first innings and the last 6 wickets for 31 runs in the second. But, more importantly, sloppy fielding - India dropped too many catches and half-chances were not held on to - in both innings allowed England to first draw level in the first innings and then walk away with victory.

Coupled with this was the fact that to shore up the late order batting (which was ironical as it collapsed in both innings), India made a selection error. Allrounder Shardul Thakur was picked ahead of the penetrative and wicket-taking Arshdeep Singh and he failed with both the bat and the ball. His bowling was listless, even pedestrian, and India missed Arshdeep sorely. Further, a player like Yashasvi Jaiswal was guilty of dropping four simple catches, all of England's top order batters. That proved to be costly in terms of the result of the match. Sunil Gavaskar had singled out Jaiswal for his sloppy fielding in the first innings itself but he continued with his butter fingers in the second too. This team needs to get its playing eleven right and improve its fielding by several notches if it hopes to win the series.