NEW DELHI: Star pacer
Jasprit Bumrah
showcased a spectacular show by claiming a match haul of nine wickets to lead India's 106-run win over England in the second Test on Monday and level the five-match series.
Chasing a mammoth 399-run target for victory, England, who won the opening Test by 28 runs in Hyderabad, succumbed to a total of 292 in the second session on day four in Visakhapatnam.
For tourists,
Zak Crawley
was the highest scorer with a resilient 73.
Bumrah and spinner
Ravichandran Ashwin
, who ended the second Test with 499 Test wickets, claimed three wickets apiece in the final innings.
Bumrah castled Tom Hartley to seal the deal for India.
After India trounced England, captain
Rohit Sharma
lauded Bumrah and called him a 'champion bowler'.
"He is a champion player for us (Bumrah). When you win a game like that, you have to look at the overall performance as well. We were good with the bat. You know winning a Test in these conditions is not easy. Wanted our bowlers to step up and they did that," Rohit said.
Bumrah was adjudged Man of the Match.
"He (Bumrah) looks like a good player, understands his game really well. Long way to go for him, has got a lot to offer for our team. Hope he stays humble," he said.
There were eight players in the starting line-up with a collective experience of only 68 Tests, five of them with match count that was not even in double digits.
No wonder skipper Rohit was proud of his inexperienced bunch pulling off an impressive 106-run victory, where the hosts didn't have the luxury of banking on the seasoned trio of
Virat Kohli
, Ravindra Jadeja, and KL Rahul.
"Wickets was really good to bat on. If I have to point anything, lot of the batters got starts but couldn't get big score. But I understand they're young and new to the game. Important for us to give them confidence," Rohit said.
"Very proud of such a young squad to come up against a team like that. Lot of the guys are quite young in terms of playing this form of the game. It'll take some time to be absolutely spot on. Want them to play freely without any pressure. Last couple of years England have been playing good cricket. Knew it wasn't going to be an easy series. Three more to go. We'll keep our check on it and make sure we do most things right," the Indian captain said.
The third Test starts February 15 in Rajkot.
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