After the Heroics of Rishabh Pant and Washington Sundar had pulled India out of trouble on Day 2, the hosts wrapped up the match on Day 3 by handing England the defeat and qualified for the World Test Championship. India will now play New Zealand at the Lord's Cricket Ground in England from June 18,2021 in the WTC Finals.
At the start of Day 3, Sundar was still unbeaten at 60 with Axar Patel, forged another solid partnership that solidified India's grip on the match. The duo added a 106 stand for the eight wicket partnership before a slight misunderstanding between them resulted in a run out for Axar Patel at the non strikers end. He departed with 43 runs to his name on the scoreboard.
With Washington Sundar at the non strikers end in the next over, Ben Stokes got the better of both of India's next Batsmens Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Siraj. Due to that India were bowled out for 365 in 114.4 overs with Washington Sundar being left stranded at 96 not out at the other end as he missed out a well deserved ton. India went into the third innings with a lead of 160 runs.
England knew the game was beyond them and needed to score atleast 350-400 to even have a chance to defending a target of 200-250 and to do that against a spin attack of Patel and Ashwin was no easy task.
They lost 4 quick wickets and were soon reduced to 30/4 with Patel and Ashwin doing the damage once again. A little resistance from Joe Root and Ollie Pope was also broken quickly as England found themselves staring at another humiliating defeat with the score at 65/6.
In the end they atleast managed to get to a little respectable score,thanks to 50 run knock by Dan Lawrence. India bowled out England for 135 in 54.5 overs as Patel and Ashwin both picked up a 5fer with the latter picking his 30th 5 wicket haul in test matches. India won the game by an innings and 25 runs.
For his outstanding performance with the both the ball and bat in the series, Ravichandran Ashwin was judged the Man of the Series. He picked up 31 wickets in 4 games and also scored a century in the second test at Chennai.
India and England will now battle it out on a 5 match T20 series starting from March 12.
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