On This Day in 2021: Virat Kohli's fiery speech propelled India to epic victory at Lord's

India and England have produced numerous exhilarating matches across the three formats, however, arguably one of the most thrilling matches came in 2021 during the second Test at the Lord’s Cricket Ground in London.

Led by Virat Kohli, team India got off to a solid start as the Three Lions decided to field first after winning the toss. Getting a competitive first innings score of 364 runs courtesy of KL Rahul’s 129 runs coupled with Rohit Sharma’s 83, team India remained in control of the contest.

Meanwhile, seasoned pacer James Anderson claimed a magnificent five-wicket haul whereas Ollie Robinson and Mark Wood got two wickets apiece to wrap up the Indian batting innings. What followed was a strong response by the English side as skipper Joe Root’s unbeaten knock of 180 runs along with Jonny Bairstow’s 57 and Rory Burns’ 49, helped the side post 391 runs in the second innings.

Things began to take a turn for the Indian side during the start of the third innings as they endured blows in quick time which left them reeling quite early. KL Rahul and Rohit failed to contribute with valuable knocks and were dismissed for paltry scores of 5 and 21, respectively.

In the middle order, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane tried to bail their side of the precarious scenario as they combined to raise a 100-run stand at the close of Day 4. Rahane and Pujara were sent packing early on the final day for scores of 61 and 45 and with this team India’s miseries were further compounded as the lower middle order fell cheaply for meagre scores, reducing the side to 209/8.

For 60 overs they should feel hell out there: Virat Kohli

The game saw yet another twist in the thrilling affair as it was Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami, who come lower down the order and helped their side attain a modest total. Bumrah played a delicate knock whereas Shami took the onus to get the boundaries for his side as the pair raised a brilliant 89-run stand.

Both remained unbeaten as Shami concluded with a score of 56 off 70 balls whereas Bumrah got 34 off 64 balls as team India scored 298 runs before declaring, thereby setting a target of 272 runs. At the start of the chase, skipper Kohli made a fiery speech to his teammates, urging them to play fiercely to obtain a result in their favour.

“If I see anyone laughing in front of their players, see what happens. Got it? For 60 overs they should feel hell out there,” Kohli was heard saying to his teammates before the chase began. Motivated by the skipper’s speech, the bowling unit came all guns blazing as Mohammed Siraj claimed a four-wicket haul whereas Jasprit Bumrah and Ishant Sharma got three and two wickets, respectively to outfox England to a paltry 120 runs. With this, team India pulled off a thrilling win by 151 runs.