"Wanted to frustrate them..." Akash Deep opens up on his fifty in The Oval test against England

Akash Deep made 66 at The Oval and added 107 runs with Yashasvi Jaiswal in India’s second innings.

India pacer Akash Deep spoke about the recent five-test tour in England and spoke about how making flat tracks to ensure Bazball batting came back to bite England in the end.

Akash Deep picked 13 wickets in the three tests he played. His best was 6/99 in the Edgbaston test, where he also picked up a ten-wicket haul. However, his performance in the remainder of the series remained lacklustre as he struggled with a hip injury during and post the Lord’s test.

Akash Deep also starred with the bat, scoring a vital fifty at the Oval to prolong England’s misery in India’s second innings.

Akash Deep opens up about his batting exploits at the Oval test in England

While he may have not done much with the ball in the Oval test, picking up just two wickets across both innings, Deep made a huge impact with his knock of 66 in the second innings of the test, when India was down in the match.

After losing KL Rahul and Sai Sudharsan early, Akash Deep made 66 and added 107 runs for the third wicket with Yashasvi Jaiswal, who made 118. Their knocks, along with fifties by Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar, helped India make 396 and post a 374-run target for England.

“See, in that match, I actually had a bit of an injury. While bowling, I had picked up a slight niggle around my thigh. Because of that, I wasn’t able to bowl properly. But since we only had two or three fast bowlers, I had to bowl regardless.

“Then I was sent out as a night watchman. At that point, my mindset was clear: ‘I must not get out.’ I had to survive. Because England too only had three bowlers, and if we managed to frustrate them by batting longer, their patience would be tested. Once bowlers lose their patience for an hour or two, it becomes difficult for them to bowl with the same discipline. So that was my thinking,” Akash Deep said about his knock.

“The next morning, when I went out to bat, I stuck to that same mindset. Ball by ball, I kept telling myself: play this one, then play the next one. I wasn’t even looking at the runs. But as I survived ball after ball, the runs started adding up. And that’s how that fifty came—it was built purely on patience and focus,” Akash Deep added.

Thanks to a fifer by Mohammed Siraj and four wickets by Prasidh Krishna, India managed to bowl England out for 367 and win the match by six runs and level the series 2-2.

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