England's Harry Brook admitted that India felt a bit of pressure after the hosts decided to give it back to them in the fourth innings and that it did have a cascading effect on the result. India failed to chase down 193 in the fourth innings, losing the Lord's Test by 22 runs in what was an epic finish in the last session on the final day. It was a chirpy day at Lord's and Brook revealed that what happened late on Day 3 when Jasprit Bumrah, Shubman Gill and every Indian player had England openers Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett under pressure with a war of words, probably triggered them to give India back.
"We try and play in the spirit of the game as much as possible. Them lads went hard at Creeps (Crawley) and Ducky (Duckett) that night when Bumrah bowled that single over. We watched that, we reassessed and we thought that it was the right time to go back at them," Brook told reporters in Manchester ahead of the fourth Test while mentioning that the argy-bargy and the war of words between the two teams made for good viewing for the spectators in the final two days.
"I have had a lot of compliments. Everybody said that it was awesome to watch. It looked like 11 vs two out there when we were fielding and it was good fun. It was tiring but made fielding a lot more enjoyable.
"Yeah, I think so (the sledging affecting India's batting). I think it put them under a little bit more pressure. Obviously, chasing a low score on a tough pitch and might have given them that little bit of added pressure. Thankfully, they ended up crumbling and we won the game," Brook said further.
Brook didn't have a great outing last week at Lord's and hence, lost his place from the top of the ICC rankings to Joe Root, which he was happy to do. Brook did mention that staying at the top would have been nice, but calling him the 'greatest Test batter ever', he didn't mind Root surpassing him and deservedly so.
