August 7 (Saturday) was an action-packed day for Indian sports. It actually turned out to be a landmark day with the Indian contingent winning a bronze and gold each at Tokyo 2020, in wrestling (Bajrang Punia) and javelin (Neeraj Chopra) respectively, whereas miles away, Virat Kohli-led India were fighting it hard versus Joe Root’s England in the first Test at Trent Bridge, Nottingham.
After India’s healthy 95-run lead, England openers started the day at 25 for no loss and were quickly reduced to 46-2 before Joe Root’s 109 and his useful partnerships with Dom Sibley, Daniel Lawrence, Jonny Bairstow, and Sam Curran propelled England to 303 all-out, giving India a tricky 209-run target on Day 4 of the five-match Test series opener.
While it was a tough battle between bat and ball, Kohli-led Indian bowlers found it difficult to keep churning out wickets at regular intervals. Post some hiccups, they finally managed to get rid of the English batting tail soon but the hosts had made a strong comeback by then. During the course of the day, India’s frustration and desperation were evident as they wasted all their three reviews very soon.
Hence, former England captain Michael Vaughan slammed Kohli & Co. for their poor usage of DRS reviews. He tweeted saying, “India are so so so bad at reviews …. !!”
When Root was nearing his hundred, batting on 97, Mohammed Siraj had convinced captain Kohli to go upstairs for DRS review, thinking he had the English captain trapped lbw. However, the decision remained unchanged whereas the 32-year-old Kohli & Co. were being short of DRS reviews during the latter part of the English innings, for possible dismissal.
