England vs India, 2021: India Are Clearly The Best Test Team In The World, Says Shane Warne

Legendary Australia spinner Shane Warne crowned Team India as the best Test team in the world after Virat Kohli’s and co. registered a victory at The Oval taking all 10 English wickets on Day 5 – as they did at Lord’s in the second Test – and claiming an unassailable 2-1 series lead with one game to go.

Coming into the final day at 77/0, England had an eye on the 368-run target. However, after losing their first wicket at the score of 100, Indian bowlers routed through the English batting line-up and bowled them out early in the third session.

Shane Warne took to Twitter to praise the Asian giants not just for their victory at The Oval, but for their immense success in red-ball cricket over the last 12 months – starting from the triumph in Australia with several first-choice players missing.

“Congratulations .@imVkohli & the entire Indian team on another terrific win. What you guys have all achieved together over the last 12 months is absolutely magnificent ! Clearly the best test team in the world & that title is thoroughly deserved too ! Long live test cricket,” Shane Warne tweeted.

This is the first time since 1986 India have won two Tests on a tour of England; they would be wanting to win, or draw out, the fifth Test to win the series, having won it last time in 2007.

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Among top three bowling performances I have witnessed as captain: Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli waxed lyrical on his bowling attack. Ravindra Jadeja did exactly what Kohli had claimed at the toss: use the rough patches created by the right-arm pacers – he did that in taking a couple of crucial wickets. Umesh Yadav cleaned up the tail with three strikes; while Shardul Thakur two wickets.

But it was Jasprit Bumrah who broke England’s back in the chase with astonishing figures of 22-9-27-2.

Kohli talked about the improved batting performance in the second innings which spurred the team on to go out all guns blazing with the ball.

“The best thing about the both wins is the character that the side has shown. If you look at how the game panned: you mentioned the 100-run lead that England had in the first innings – to come back from there and the way we batted in the second innings showed that we are not down and out. And we are not looking to surivive in this game. If there’s an opportunity to put the opposition under pressure, we’ll go for it. And we put up a total on the board which was always going to be difficult to chase, especially heading latter half of Day 4 and 5,” the Indian skipper said at the post-match ceremony.

“As I said at Lord’s as well, I’m really proud of the character the team has shown, specially this morning the way the team has bowled. It is definitely among top three bowling performances that I have witnessed as Indian captain,” he added.