"Not At All Accepted": Ex-India Star Blasts Jadeja, Gill For 3rd Test Loss

As India lost the third Test vs England at Lord's by a narrow margin of 22 runs, former India player Vijay Bharadwaj has questioned the team's tactics towards the end of the game. He lashed out at Ravindra Jadeja for his batting approach while also blasting India captain Shubman Gill for letting the player do so. In the chase of 193 runs in the fourth innings, India went eight down with 112 runs on the board. Jadeja, being the only batter left, tried to keep the strike more and more with himself but what surprised was the fact that he himself didn't look for runs much.

Bumrah, India's number 10 batter, got out after scoring 5 runs off 54 balls, while Mohammed Siraj, the number 11 batter, hit 4 off 30 balls. India were bundled out for 170 and Jadeja remained not out at the score of 61 off 181 balls. Bharadwaj felt that he should have tried scoring some more runs towards the end, instead of being contented with a slow progress.

"I think the approach was only wrong. How can Shubman Gill say we will leave Jadeja to make his game plan the way he wants? If he was doing it right then okay. He wasn't picking runs and looking to win the game. How will you accept giving strike to Bumrah and Jadeja from the outside? With Bumrah and Siraj getting out and Jadeja remaining not out in the end, not at all accepted. There is no use. If the team does not win either 50 or 200, it doesn't matter. Jadeja is batting well. In such a time, even if he went to score and got out we could have said fine its okay," Bharadwaj said on Star Sports.

"It felt like he was playing for a draw. I feel the fabric, the way he played, and the approach itself was wrong. If someone as experienced as Jadeja was playing like this, someone from the outside at least could have told him. It is disappointing to come so close and lose a game that we should have won. There were 23-24 runs remaining, and at that time, Jadeja, batting at 60, did not think that the calculation was about the runs and not the overs," he added.

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