OH LORD!

When Siraj was out after the ball rolled up to the stumps, the TRP on JioHotstar was around a whopping 70 crore on a Monday night... that’s almost half of India’s 140 crore!!!

- Robin Roy

Earlier, on Sunday when Team India were wrapped up for 58 for 4, fans had clearly given up and thought that the collapse would maximise post-lunch session.

But the gritty Jadeja joined by the tail had inched closer and the diehard fans thought... maybe we could achieve the milestone at the Lord’s where on July 13, 2002 during the NatWest Final, Mohd Kaif and Zaheer khan did the magic for India and the then captain Sourav Ganguly had waved his jersey in the air from the famed Lord’s balcony.

But fate had a different script for us. It was so near yet so far.

We fought till the end and then the knives were out to clinically dissect the parts of the game that went horribly awry.

Even as we won the last Test and runs scored were in galore, but the infamous landslide of wickets for which Team India is also well-known was lurking in the dark.

Our top order was pathetic and why Jaiswal chose to go for such a shot when we just had to score 193 to win will remain to haunt us forever.

Gill, too, went cheaply and maybe now the Wise men of BCCI, including Gautam Gambhir should realise why they shouldn’t have ignored run machine Shreyas Iyer.

Maybe critics can say that it is easy to criticise the Board when the team loses, but facts are facts. After having played so solidly, how come Team India doesn’t even bother to look at performers.