Win the toss, bowl first and trust the surface to hold firm for the chase. The tactic has served Ben Stokes pretty well these past three years, but here it blew up in his face. Instead, Shubman Gill was the captain being showered with praise at the end, his first victory in the job levelling this series at one-all courtesy of a 336-run thumping.
That toss? Hindsight tells us it was clearly a poor choice, even if Gill would have done the same. But India’s first win at Edgbaston at the 19th attempt was ultimately decided by the visitors outperforming their hosts in pretty much every department across the five days. And as England subsided to 271 all out in 68.1 overs, after being set an unlikely 608 to win the day before, the chief disparity was very much highlighted.
