LONDON: India skipper Virat Kohli has said that the constant verbals between his side and England in the second Test gave extra motivation to his boys to finish the game off.
India and England provided an intense spectacle on day five as players from both sides engaged in verbals and in the end, it was Kohli's team who emerged triumphant in an engaging match.
"I was part of the winning Test match last time when I was a player under MS Dhoni. That was pretty special as well, Ishant bowled an outstanding spell. In that game, we put them under pressure on day four itself, ESPNcricinfo quoted Kohli as saying.
"But this one, to get a result in 60 overs, when we all thought let's just have a crack at what we have in front of us... It's quite special and especially when someone like Siraj is playing for the first time at Lord's and bowling the way he did, it was outstanding. As I said, what happened on the field )really charged us up and gave us that extra motivation to finish the game off," he added.
In the second innings, India was struggling at 209/8 and it was then that Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami got together to stitch an unbeaten 89-run stand for the ninth wicket. Shami and Bumrah remained unbeaten on 56 and 34.
"Just to applaud what Jasprit and Shami did... It takes a lot of character and heart to play under those circumstances as bowlers who don't get much to bat, and just putting their hand up for the team when we needed it most, it was something that we were really proud of and we want to let them know. They were charged up and both took the new ball and got us two breakthroughs as well, which were very crucial for us," said Kohli.
"When we were our most successful in Test cricket for a year and a half, our lower order was contributing big time and that's something that we went away from a little bit when we play away from home. So that was one of our focuses, the batting coach has really worked hard with the boys and they are putting in the hard work," he added.
When asked about the timing of the declaration, Kohli said: "It was more a case of 'what's the number of overs we are comfortable with'. I thought anything under 55 doesn't sound right, I don't want to walk off the field later thinking 'what if we had four or five more overs left with us'. We decided, okay, 60 is our mark, and we are going to have a crack at them in 60 overs but, as I said, the crucial breakthroughs with the ball were the right start for us and we carried on from there."
At the start of the day, England looked like the favourites to win the match. But Bumrah and Shami showed class with the bat, and then an epic bowling performance sealed the deal for the visitors. England battled hard, but their top order failures led to their downfall with the team being steamrolled for just 120 in the second innings, handing visitors a win by 151 runs.