India reminiscent of great Australian sides of the past, says Steve Harmison

The Indian bowlers delivered an incredible performance on the fifth day of the fourth Test match against England. The visitors managed to bag six wickets for just 47 runs and completely derail the England batting lineup. The hosts did have a good start to their run chase but it did not last long. India had set a humongous target of 368. It was always going to be a tough ask for the batters to get the job done against what is an in-form Indian bowling lineup. The performance earned the plaudits of former England bowler Steve Harmison, who said that the Indian side was reminiscent of the great Australian teams of the past that were led by the likes of Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting.

“In the pressure situations that India find themselves on Day 5, they keep going and they keep asking questions of the opposition. Sometimes, on Day 5, you are tired, and when you play constantly under that sort of pressure with what Indian players do in IPL and stuff like that, then all off a sudden you can break a team down,” Steve Harmison said on ESPNCricinfo.

“The great Australian side, me and VVS (Laxman) played against, they broke you down on Day 5. That’s when their skill levels came out and they won the game then. I think this Indian team is turning into that. They break teams down, get them to a point of submission. Because they are so used to bowling or batting under pressure, then their skill sets come out in the end,” he added.

India bowled the Three Lions out for 210, recording a 157-run-victory at The Oval. There were questions raised about the team selection as a number of fans were expecting to see Ravichandran Ashwin on the team sheet. However, the doubters were proved wrong as India recorded a famous victory to take a 2-1 lead in the series. With only one more match to go, there is no way that India can lose the series. For England, however, the final game will be one that they will play for pride as they certainly would not want to lose a Test series in their own backyard.

ENGLAND’S PROBLEMS

An issue that has raised its ugly head in the England side is that a number of players are not guaranteed a start. It certainly is not helping the squad. Harmison admitted that the fact that most players in the team are fighting for their places is not helping England when they come down to facing up pressure situations.

“Even in the back end of their first innings, if somebody took some responsibility to go and score a hundred, really understand the situation and ram in the advantage, England would have been ahead. Apart from Joe Root or James Anderson with the ball, I don’t think there is anybody who really understands the situation or believes in the situation of the match because they are just fighting for their careers. They are just trying to cement their place in a stop-start career. Everybody who are playing for England at this time can’t really look in the mirror and say, ‘I own this shirt and this place in this team’. That for me is a concern moving forward,” the former cricketer said.