India hammered England with a win for the ages as they defeated the visitors by 434 runs at the Niranjan Shah Stadium in Rajkot. Rohit Sharma's men were too hot to handle for the Ben Stokes-led side as they neutralised the Bazball threat to register their biggest Test win. The victory saw the Men in Blue take a 2-1 lead in the five-match series and a big stride in clinching it.
Yashasvi Jaiswal's 214*, Shubman Gill's 91 and Sarfaraz Khan's 68* helped the hosts set a daunting target of 557 and then the bowlers did their trick. Ravindra Jadeja was then class apart. He tore through the England middle-order to deny them of any sort of hope to help the Indian team bowl England out for 122. The win saw India take a 2-1 lead and just one more away from winning the series.
However, England captain Ben Stokes is still confident that his team can go on to make a comeback and win the series. " Everyone's got a perception and opinion about things, the people in the dressing room is what matters to us. 1-2 down in the series and a great opportunity for us to come back and win the series. We leave this game behind and we know we have to win the next 2 games to win the series and that's what we'll look to do," Stokes said in the post-match interview.
He also heaped praise on Ben Duckett for his fabulous knock of 153 in the first innings. "Ben Duckett played an unbelievable innings. That was the tone we wanted to set throughout the innings. It was about identifying that opportunity and getting as close to India's total. We wanted to bowl yesterday but it was earlier than when we wanted. Sometimes gameplans don't work and that was the case," he added.
