India's home supremacy weathered the 'Bazball' storm as Rohit Sharma's men secured a hard-fought five-wicket win over England in the fourth Test and seal a 17th consecutive series triumph in their own backyard on Monday. (As It Happened | Match Report | More Cricket News)
Resuming overnight's score of 40/0 in a chase of 192, India's win would not have been possible without a blistering start given by openers Rohit Sharma (55 off 81 balls) and Yashasvi Jaiswal (37 off 44 balls) that provided the perfect platform for others to build with their 84-run stand on day four of the match.
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Winning skipper Rohit Sharma congratulated his team for the effort and called his team 'composed and spirited set'.
"It's been a very hard-fought series. To come at the right side of it at the end of 4 Tests, I'm feeling very proud of the boys - I'm happy at having achieved what we wanted to do, a very composed and very spirited set of guys," said Rohit in the post-match presentation.
India faced few jitters in the middle when they lost Ravindra Jadeja and Sarfaraz Khan in consecutive deliveries post-lunch. However, Dhruv Jurel and Shubman Gill stitched an unbeaten 72-run stand to guide India home. For England, left-arm spinner Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir were the pick of the bowlers with the latter scalping eight in the match.
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India's win gave them a 3-1 series lead with the last game scheduled in Dharamsala from March 7. The team's last home series loss was a 1-2 defeat to an Alastair Cook-led England in 2012-13. Since then, India have won 39 out of 50 Tests at home.
Ben Stokes 'Proud' Of England's Display
Despite ending up on the losing side, English skipper Ben Stokes said he was 'proud' of his team's display in Ranchi.
"I think it was a great Test match. If you see the scoreboard, it'll say India won by 5 wickets, but it doesn't give credit to the way things unfolded, the ebbs and flows on every single day it happened," said Stokes.
Stokes marshalled a relatively young side, featuring a raw spin duo of Bashir and Hartley, brilliantly and pushed India to the limit. Despite the defeat, the skipper said that he "can only be proud of the team."
"We've had some inexperienced spinners (Bashir and Hartley), but I'm proud of their efforts, they came here without a lot of exposure and the way they kept bowling, I can't ask for anything more."
Brief scores:
England: 353 and 145
India: 307 and 192/5 in 61 overs (Rohit Sharma 55, Shubman Gill 52 not out, Dhruv Jurel 39 not out, Yashasvi Jaiswal 37; Shoaib Bashir 3/79).
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(With PTI inputs)
