India's shocking defeat in the first Test against England has raised quite a few eyebrows as the team ended up on the losing side despite scoring over 400 runs in the first innings and dominating the first six sessions of the match in Hyderabad.
India scored 436 runs in reply to England's first innings 246 but then suffered a dramatic batting collapse after the visitors overturned the 190-run deficit and set the hosts a target of 231 to win at Uppal thanks to Ollie Pope's 196.
Debutant left-arm off-spinner Tom Hartley then produced one of the best bowling performances in Test cricket to bag 7 wickets and help bowl out India for 202.
The defeat is India's first in 6 Tests at this venue and their first against England in 3 three years. This is also the first time India have lost a Test at home after taking a lead of over 100 runs in the first innings.
There were several reasons which led to this result as India faltered with bat and ball in the last two days to end up on the losing side.
Batting Failures
Indian batters were guilty of playing rash shots and wasting their starts in both innings.
The batting failures of Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer and the low scores of captain Rohit Sharma majorly contributed to the defeat as well.
Gill & Iyer under fire
Gill's struggle in red-ball cricket last year carried over to this match as well as the 24-year-old registered scores of 23 and 0 in both innings.
Iyer also performed well below expectations with scores of just 35 and 13. A big effort was needed from him in the second innings but the 29-year-old failed to live up to the mark once again.
Rohit fails to convert his starts again
Captain Rohit also needs to share the responsibility as he was guilty of gifting his wicket to England. The 36-year-old seemed to be comfortable at the crease in both innings but go out against the run of play on 24 and 39, respectively.
Rohit looked fluent whenever he had the bat in his hand therefore, he should have taken the responsibility in the second innings to do the bulk of the scoring and keep advancing from one end during the run chase.
Spinners ineffective in 2nd innings & Bazball approach
Indian spinners were right on point on the first day of the match when they bowled out England for 246 inside three sessions but their performance dropped drastically in the second.
England's attacking approach, or what they like to call as Bazball, came into effect in the second innings when the likes of Pope, Ben Duckett and Ben Foakes applied pressure by playing unconventional strokes on a turning track.
The English batters used the sweep and reverse-sweep shots to unsettle and frustrate the Indian bowlers. Captain Ben Stokes had done the same during his swashbuckling 70 in the first innings.
Dropped catches cost India
India's ground fielding was good on the first two days but things started to go wrong when England put the hosts under pressure through big partnerships in their second innings.
After spending over a day on the field, Indian players looked tired and demoralised which led to them dropping easy catches.
Axar Patel first dropped Pope on 110 after which KL Rahul did the same when he moved on to 186 on Day 4. The dropped catches cost India 80 runs which would have made the telling difference in the result if the chances had been grabbed.
