Credit: England Cricket
Former South Africa captain AB de Villiers has berated Team India’s batting-unit for the loss against England in the third Test of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy 2025, played at the iconic Lord’s. Chasing a mere total of 193, India fell 22 runs short and gave the hosts a 2-1 lead in the five-match series. Their mainstay batters Yashasvi Jaiswal, Karun Nair, Shubman Gill, and Rishabh Pant flopped in the second innings. Except for Ravindra Jadeja, no batter stepped up and showed fighting spirit for the visitors. Jadeja played an unbeaten 61-run knock and took the game deep for India. However, his innings wasn’t enough for India to cross the line.
Talking about India’s recent defeat, de Villiers slammed the team’s batting unit for playing timidly during the run chase. "I think team India went wrong in my humble opinion, final innings way too conservative with the bat in hand in the top five. I felt Jaddu played it to the tea because he needed to be conservative and play the situation, where I felt the top five had a lot more freedom to be fluent out there and to take that attack to the English bowlers, put pressure on them, make them get the catches out," said de Villiers on his YouTube channel.
Ab de Villiers feels India will regret losing at Lord’s vs England
AB de Villiers also revealed that India’s tactic of taking the game deep backfired and the two-time World Test Championship runners-up will regret losing the golden opportunity of winning the Test contest against the English side. "Team India never got to do that as they were very tentative, very conservative, obviously wanted to take it deep, but that sort of backfired. India will be very disappointed not leading this series right now. They’ve missed out on so many opportunities to dominate, especially with the bat in hand with those last batters," added de Villiers.
India will look to bounce back in the fourth Test to be played at the Old Trafford in Manchester from July 23 onwards. Shubman Gill and his men will be required to display discipline against England in the crucial contest to keep their chances of series victory alive.
