Birmingham | England captain Ben Stokes conceded that India well and truly turned the tables on his team in every department of the game with pacer Akash Deep's "incredible" skill-set making the decisive difference in the second Test here.
Playing his first game of the series, Akash Deep picked up a match haul of 10 wickets to fashion a famous 336-run win for India, who had never won on this ground prior to Sunday. The five-match showdown is now locked 1-1 with the third Test at Lord's from July 10.
"I thought Akash exposed that crack last night and this morning. His ability to use and change his angles consistently and still be so accurate. He was zoning in on that crack. That one Harry Brook got this morning you can't do anything about that," Stokes said in the post-match press conference.
The hallmark of his effort was relentlessly attacking the stumps from a good length and using the angles effectively. He was able to generate the most amount of seam movement in the match.
He got one length ball to hit the crack and nip back sharply to thud in to Harry Brooks' pads. The England batter could not do anything about that peach.
"Standing at the other end when Jamie Smith got a couple of those early on. It was seaming a foot off it. Incredible skillful to hone in on that zone while still changing his angles on the crease. I thought it was good," said Stokes.
Task today was batting out 80 overs
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Resuming the day at 72 for three, England could only bat 52.1 overs on day five in the improbable chase of 608. The Stokes led side doesn't believe in draws but the captain said in as many words the target was out of reach.
"...300 and something is obviously a big margin (for the defeat). We knew what task we had ahead of us going into when we first went out to bat. That changed when you lose three wickets last night and lose two early wickets," he said.
"The task today was batting out the 80 overs. The result we always try to push towards, and look for, was beyond...for us as a batting unit, to go out and bat the 80 overs was to go and play the way we play and focus on the fact that we knew we had to bat 80 overs." "...India pushed to get 600 for some obvious reasons," he said referring to India's delayed declaration on day four.
Asked to pick two important moments of the game, Stokes said, "There were two moments in the game. Having them 200 for five and then not quite being able to blast them open, like we know that we can.
"They ended up getting a big first innings total, obviously after us having a good start, having them five down for not too many on the board.
"Then obviously being 80 for five in reply to the first innings, it's obviously going to be tough to get back into a position where you look to push on and be on the winning side at the end of the game."
Did Indian pacers bowl better than England quicks? ================================
Stokes acknowledged the superiority of India's pace attack.
"We nicked a few more than India did. It's one of those, where we went past the bat a few times, had a few nicks go in the game. We nicked them and India caught them. It can be such a frustrating game some times and be out there to watch this stuff unfold in front of you.
"That's why you love it, being part of the emotions of this game. That is part of what makes Test cricket a game people love watching, a little bit of luck here and there and you are the team on top.
"They played better as an all round unit, batting and bowling this week. We were in that position last week," Stokes added.
