It was a nail bitting encounter between the two best sides in the world where India was beaten by Englishmen. This match proved the strength of the top rated players like Virat Kohli, Joe Root, James Anderson, Ben stokes, Ashwin and surprisingly Sam Curran - 20 year old left hand bowler who also got the Man of the Match trophy in this test. Sam Curran did a great contribution in this test for the England side taking 4 wickets in the 1st Innings and 1 wicket in the second, but his contribution with the bat eventually made the difference between the 2 teams and putting England on the winning side. He scored 24 runs in the first innings facing 71 balls and in second innings 63 facing 65 balls that put the england side to a better total after struggling a bit.

On day 1, England won the toss and elected to bat first. They got to a bad start and lost ther first wicket of Alastair Cook early but managed to struggle against the Indian bowlers completing their 1st Innings on a higher note. They scored a total of 287. Thanks to Joe Root who scored 80 runs and got runout by Virat Kohli. When the Indian team started their innings with the bat, the England bowlers had no mercy on them. They suppressed the Indian batsmen except Virat Kohli who stood up for his team alone and scored 149 runs ending the innings on 274 trailing to England by 13 runs. All other Indian batsmen failed to put any impact on their innings.

The second Innings of England was bit on a lower side than their first. The Indian bowlers bowled well and they keep taking wickets on regular intervals. No one among the english men managed to score more than 20 except Bairstow and Sam Curran. Sam Curran's Innings of 63 off 65 balls which included 9 fours and 2 sixes proved to be very essential and they end up with 180 allout giving india to chase down the score of 194. Indian 2nd Innings again started slow and they keep throwing their wickets but yet again it was Virat Kohli with his magic and form proving to be a blessing to his team. He scored 51 runs off 93 balls. Hardik pandya tried to put some efforts at the end but all went in vain and England won the first test of the series and took the lead 1-0 over India. From England's bowling perspective it was Ben Stokes who came to rescue his team and took 4 important wickets including Virat Kohli who was looking dangerous in the second innings also.

Overall it was very exciting game of Cricket which we encountered at Birmingham and nobody was able to predict the final results till the last ball was bowled. With the matches like these, we believe that Test Cricket is still alive and it is the purest source of cricket.