England needs to chase 536 runs on the final day to win the second Test.
England have to chase a mammoth 536 runs to win the match with seven wickets in hand, at the Edgbaston Stadium on the final day of the second Test. In this situation, former England skipper Michael Vaughan has made a stunning remark. He opined that if the English team could manage to secure a draw here, then this would be greater than their victory in the series opener in Leeds.
“If they can get away from here with a draw, it’s almost better than last week’s win because it’s completely against their natural trade,” he opined while speaking on BBC Test Match Special.
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The former batter slammed the current English team for their collective approach of chasing whatever target they have been challenged with. He emphasised that the best possible result for England from this point would be a hard-earned draw.
“Bazball’s going to get asked the ultimate question tomorrow. Are the team and the players going to go completely against what their natural instincts are to do? You’ve got to get what’s best on offer. And what’s best on offer at the minute is a draw,” added Vaughan.
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Moreover, the 50-year-old criticised this “win only” mindset of Ben Stokes and Co. He also pointed out that this approach would not help them to win a long red-ball home series against India or the upcoming five-match Ashes tour of Australia.
“If you want to win the big series against the likes of India at home in five matches and you want to go to Australia, I think it’s impossible to have a mindset that we just win, that’s all we go for. We don’t play for draws,” stressed Vaughan.
Even after putting up a combined 835 runs, including five tons from four Indian batters, England defeated India by five wickets in the first fixture of the five-match series. However, Team India bounced back in the second match to pile up even more runs as they registered the first-ever instance to score 1,000-plus runs in a single Test match.
Newly appointed captain Shubman Gill notched up two valiant knocks of 269 and 161, respectively, following his previous career-best 147 at the Headingley Stadium. The pace unit, consisting of Mohammed Siraj and Akashdeep Singh, also made a stunning comeback, despite missing prime seamer Jasprit Bumrah due to his workload management, to scalp all of India’s 13 wickets in the match so far. Siraj starred with a six-wicket haul while Akashdeep bagged four wickets in the previous innings.
However, India will need seven wickets to level the series on the fifth and final day in Birmingham. But there are question marks on how many sessions they would get to play. Currently, it’s raining in England and is forecasted to continue till 11 AM local time.
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