The six-over spell that turned the Test

On a pitch that was offering little to the seamers in terms of movement, the match looked destined for a draw as England reached lunch on the final day at 131 for two with Haseeb Hameed well set on 62 and the series’ outstanding batter Joe Root looking comfortable.

To that point India’s attack had bowled with discipline, turning the screws and asking the right questions only to be met with the correct answers by a determined England top order.

Shardul Thakur had provided an early breakthrough when he struck in the eighth over of the day to remove Rory Burns but there was little encouragement for the tourists in the first session with the run out of Dawid Malan a surprise bonus.

At the same time, just 54 runs came for England in the first session leaving their hopes of victory close to extinguished – 237 runs from the final two sessions was always going to prove difficult -and India had an ace up their sleeve.

“Well it is quite relative what you call flat,” Virat Kohli said of the pitch at the post-match presentation.

“The last two days conditions have been really hot so the field wasn’t that wet like the first three days and we knew we were in with an opportunity with Jadeja bowling from one end into the rough, the ball got scuffed up quite nicely.”

“We managed to make one side heavier and our guys when the ball is reversing enough they become much more lethal and we exploited reverse swing perfectly today.”

“We were actually looking forward to the opportunity of bowling with the old ball and we looked at that as a positive rather than thinking ‘nothing is happening from the pitch what are we going to do here?’”

“As soon as the ball started reversing a bit Jasprit just said ‘just give me the ball’ and he bowled that six-over spell and got us two breakthroughs which completely shifted the momentum to our side and from thereon we knew any more mistakes from England and we’ll be all over this game,” Kohli said.

“Credit to India, they got the ball to reverse and they really made good use of that,” England Skipper Joe Root said.

“It was a brilliant spell of bowling from Bumrah and that really was the turning point in the game.”

“I think you’ve always got to find ways of getting better and managing different periods of play – absolutely – but at the same time you’ve got to be realistic about things and understand that it was world-class bowling.”

“He saw an opportunity in the game and performed extremely well. Sometimes you’ve got to find a way of managing through that period.”

“There’s a chance there might be some reverse swing at Old Trafford – we’ll have to make sure we manage it better if we come across a similar situation.”

England went on to be bowled out for 210, with Thakur picking up his second wicket when he had Root chop on and Umesh Yadav finished things off from there as he collected three wickets. (ICC)