"If you go after one of our guys, you are going after the whole team, all XI of us will come right back.”
Some things stay etched in your memory forever and if you had to find a one-line summary of what Team India is all about, you need not go any further than this statement from KL Rahul at the end of the Lord's Test.
To win a Test match is one thing and a great joy in itself. For any team from the subcontinent, winning in one of the SENA countries is quite another.
But to win from a precarious position when, by the end of the first hour on Day 5 as Rishabh Pant got dismissed for not very much, Indian fans would have been hoping that we do not lose the match.
From there, when a draw would have looked as if God had answered our prayers, to in fact winning the match quite dramatically and dominantly, it was just surreal, amazing, and most pleasing.
The entire Anderson-Bumrah-Buttler episode seemed to have galvanized our tailenders, (correction: accomplished lower order batsmen) as Messrs Mohammad Shami and Jasprit Bumrah pulled off an absolute batting heist against the hapless English bowlers who had no clue what had hit them.
From defending and tuk-tukking the match, to actually getting to a position, we ended up declaring (by many accounts, even the declaration could have been timed earlier). Says a lot about how radically that partnership transformed the entire match. And then, the way we bowled our heart out to dismiss the Englishmen well within the 60 overs on the final day. If this is not awesomeness, I don't know what else is.
Well done, Team India and keep shining, always.
Jai Ho!
