Gill and Co marry fearless attitude with near-perfect execution at Edgbaston in watershed moment for Indian Test cricket

Self-belief can move mountains. But self-belief without mental toughness won’t get you too far. In the recently concluded Test match at Edgbaston, which culminated in India’s biggest margin of victory by runs in an away Test (336 runs), the one facet about this young Indian Test team that made me the proudest was their mental toughness. Remember they were 0-1 down in the series after losing what many felt was a match that was in the bag for India , at Leeds.

The toughest of individuals and teams can be left horribly scarred by a loss like that. It can add baggage and affect a team’s mindset and subsequently their performance on the field. Which is why the way the visiting team bounced back in the second Test, to not just win but annihilate the hosts, points at what could potentially be a pivotal moment for the future of Indian Test cricket.

This team made sure the trademark Indian fearless attitude was well married with near-perfect execution – something that was missing in the first Test at Leeds.

Gill redeems himself at Edgbaston

Shubman Gill, the newly-appointed Test captain, was mercilessly trolled and criticised by many after India lost the first Test of the series. It was not surprising at all. After all, for many Indian cricket fans, even one loss is not acceptable, let alone a loss in a match which India dominated for large parts of the game. I wonder what those people who attacked Shubman at that time would be thinking right now? Are some of them even praising him and his captaincy skills openly?

Consider the Virat Kohli Test captaincy era for a minute. Virat started his captaincy journey in the longest format with two consecutive losses – first as stand-in skipper in the Adelaide Test of 2014 and then as full-time captain in the first Test in Galle on India’s tour of Sri Lanka. Virat retired as the most successful Indian Test captain of all time, with 40 wins in 68 matches. When MAK Pataudi became India’s youngest-ever Test captain, not many expected him to forge a truly national team, to walk into the dressing room and tell the players that they were not playing for their state teams, but for India. He went on to become the first Indian Test captain to win an overseas series (vs New Zealand in 1967-68).

Like I have written before – give Shubman a chance. He might surprise you and go on to do truly great things. He of course still has a lot to learn when it comes to honing his leadership skills, but what we saw at Edgbaston was very reassuring. He was calm, didn’t show any panic and made good, strategic calls – like beginning Day 5 with Prasidh Krishna, despite a delayed start due to rain when India still needed seven wickets to win. Prasidh managed to keep things tight, which gave him much needed confidence and it also allowed Akash Deep to change ends. The snorter of a delivery that dismissed the dangerous Harry Brook LBW was the result of Akash hitting a crack on Brook’s off-side that saw the ball jag back furiously, and that too at pace.

The decision to throw the ball to Washington Sundar at a time when Ben Stokes was threatening to play a match-saving knock also paid off handsomely. Stokes’ discomfort against spin in Birmingham is something the Indian management would have noted down for sure. Back-to-back Test series wins in Australia (2018-19 and 2020-21) made sure that a Test win on foreign soil is not considered extra-special. But when a young team with a first-time captain and 0-1 down manages to completely outplay a foreign opposition in their own backyard on a flat surface, that is something very special indeed.

A decade down the line, the win in Birmingham under Shubman’s stewardship could be cited as a watershed moment for the Indian Test team, which is very much in a transition phase right now.

Before this ongoing series began, I had spoken to cricketer-turned-commentator Ajay Mehra, who told me that if Shubman manages to make runs in this series, that confidence will rub off on his captaincy. We witnessed exactly that, in many ways, at Edgbaston. The 25-year-old is now only the second Indian cricketer, after the legendary Sunil Gavaskar, to record both a century and a double century in the same Test .

His 430 runs in the second Test are also the second-highest number of runs scored in a Test match. Incidentally on top of that pile is an Englishman who notched up the record against India (Graham Gooch – 456 runs vs India in 1990). The bat is on fire. And that coupled with his first ever Test win as captain will only make him more confident as a leader. After all, he is well and truly leading from the front.

Akash grabs opportunity with both hands in Bumrah’s absence

In sport, which for all intents and purposes is a microcosm of life, mistakes will teach you much more than things you do right. It was a treat to watch how Team India fixed the chinks in their armour for the second Test, after an outing at Leeds which left much to be desired in a few departments. And they did that without the services of Jasprit Bumrah. Truth be told, not too many people expected Gautam Gambhir and co. to rest Bumrah for this match.

Yes, we all knew that Bumrah will play three of the five Tests, but with India down 0-1 in the series, it would be fair to say that most of us were expecting India’s best fast bowler currently to definitely take the field, especially after ground reports talked about Bumrah bowling full-steam in the nets in the run-up to the second Test.

Resting him and giving the nod to Akash Deep, who had played a total of seven Tests before this one, was a move that was actually criticised by many experts. And credit where credit is due, the call paid-off handsomely.

Now, there are two facets of this that need to be highlighted. And both could be big factors in a potential success story for Indian Test cricket in the years to come. First, the very brave call to rest Bumrah and play Akash. The team management was clearly drawing up a contingency plan of sorts for the latter part of the series. What if Bumrah played the second Test and India still lost? They would then be 0-2 down, with Bumrah left with just one match to play. So, a gamble was always on the cards and they decided to roll the dice.

The second very important thing to focus on here is the fact that before this Test Akash had played only two of his previous seven Tests on foreign soil – both vs Australia in December 2024 – in Brisbane and Melbourne. He had a total of five wickets combined in those two outings. Another gamble. But just like Brendon McCullum’s out-of-the-box T20 approach to Test cricket ie - ‘Bazball’ had initially stumped opposition teams, Akash foxed English batters with some outrageous seam movement on what was a flat pitch, coupled with some very clever variations and almost McGrath-like precision in hitting his lengths.

He not only grabbed the opportunity he had been given with both hands, he made sure that he becomes ‘un-droppable’ when it’s time to pick the playing XI for the third Test. How do you drop a player who has just registered the best bowling figures ever by an Indian player in a Test match in England (10/187)? Imagine the confidence boost this performance would have given the right-arm medium pacer.

Incredibly, the 28-year-old from Bihar, who plays his domestic cricket for Bengal is the first bowler since West Indian great Michael Holding to dismiss four of the top five of an English batting line-up on his own (bowled or lbw). He achieved this feat in England’s second innings on Day 5. So, in other words, Team India now have another proper wicket-taking option in these conditions, which logically augurs well for all non-subcontinental foreign condition tours in the near future as well. What this also does is that it gives the team the chance to rest Bumrah for the third Test as well and play him in the fourth and fifth. And that could well be a template that we could see repeated in future overseas tours.

India looking sharp in all departments ahead of Lord’s visit

Another thing that the team management is unlikely to change for now is the batting order. Karun Nair should be persisted with at number 3, despite scores of 31 and 26 in a match that saw India score 1,000 plus runs in a Test for the first time. With the likes of Yashasvi, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja displaying good batting form over the two Tests played so far, along with the record-breaking Shubman, whose batting seems to have only improved with the extra burden of captaincy and who now has a much better batting record in overseas Tests than the one he begun the series with, India’s top 6 is a formidable line-up.

The fast-bowling attack, with Akash’s inclusion and the always capable Mohammed Siraj, who finished with seven wickets in the match is looking much sharper now. Prasidh might have taken just one wicket in the match, but his performance overall was much better than the one he put in at Leeds. Akash has cemented his place in the XI, so if Prasidh is picked he needs to take it up a notch in the third Test at Lord’s, which begins on July 10.

Bumrah is available, and there’s every possibility that he might replace Prasidh for the next Test to try and deliver a potential knockout punch. But the G&G combo (Gambhir & Gill) might be tempted to hold him back for the last two Tests. But the bottom line is that it’s the bowlers who win you Test matches and taking 20 wickets will continue to be the visitor’s priority number one.

India have not won a Test series in England in 18 years (last Test series win in England was a 1-0 series win in a three-Test series in 2007). As things stand, with three full Tests to play, no expert worth their salt will be willing to stick their neck out and pick an outright favourite. But India are absolutely in with a chance to end that 18-year wait. And if that happens, history will remember that the turning point was the thumping win at Edgbaston. After all, as the statisticians have pointed out, never before have Team India levelled a series in England immediately after losing the first Test.