"Joe Root started to lose focus on the field" - Brad Hogg on the impact of emotions on Day 5
Former Australia spinner Brad Hogg attributed England's steady decline on Day 5 to a failure to control their emotions. On a day where tempers were flaring all over at Lord's, India used it to their advantage and claimed a historic 151-run win to go 1-0 up in the series.
A pivotal moment of the day saw Joe Root spill a catch at slip that would have sent Bumrah back into the pavilion. The former left-arm Chinaman felt that Root had started to lose focus due to emotional stress. Speaking on his YouTube channel, Hogg said:
"Joe Root dropped Bumrah in slip off Moeen Ali. I thought he had a sore back there as well but because of all that emotional stress, because Shami and Bumrah were starting to get a little bit of a partnership together, the captain started to lose focus and he lost focus on his fielding and he dropped the catch which could have helped England stay in the contest and still have a chance of winning."
Bumrah remained unbeaten alongside Mohammad Shami as they stitched up a record 88-run partnership to set a 272-run target for England to chase in the fourth innings.
England just could not cope up with the pressure: Brad Hogg
The hosts got off to the worst possible start as Bumrah and Shami struck with the new ball. This marked the first instance where both English openers both fell for a duck at home. England were always on the backfoot and could not deal with the constant pressure created by the Indian pace unit which saw the hosts eventually being bowled out for 120.
Hogg feels the Indian bowlers went overboard with aggression following an early set of breakthroughs. Haseeb Hameed and Joe Root stitched a small partnership and were looking to see out the session. However, Hogg believes the introduction of Mohammad Siraj did the trick for India as he kept things simple and tight. Hogg added:
"England just could not cope up with the pressure that was mounting on them from Indian bowlers. I thought after the first couple of wickets India got, Hameed was in and Shami and Bumrah were starting to get a little too aggressive. They tried too be too attacking, trying to bowl those inswingers, saw lot of balls going down the leg side. But then Siraj came on and created that pressure again and kept it nice and simple."
Siraj narrowly missed out on the chance to go up on the iconic Lord's honors board following four-wicket hauls in both innings.