Revisiting India's last tour of England

This July, India will be heading to England after four years for a full-fledged series. Although the last series proved to be quite horrible, the positive point is that a lot has changed since then. The current Indian team has a lot of new and young options as well as a new captain. The Men in Blue have been performing exceptionally well in the Test arena at home and also managed to win a test in South Africa this year, so the expectations from the side will be higher this time. Though captain Kohli's availability for the tour is based on his recovery, let's hope that the hard-working star will recover before the beginning of the tough contest.

India's journey in the last Test series ended with a 3-1 loss while the Asian giants suffered a whitewash back in 2011. In the subsequent test, we would be talking about the major highlights from the test series played during India's last tour of England. This includes both positive and negative points.

Victory at Lord's

The brightest spot from the highly disappointing series for Team India was their victory at Lords. This victory brought a lot of positivity to the Men in Blue. It was their first victory at the home of cricket in almost three decades and also the first overseas Test victory for the side in almost three years.

The victory was a result of some good teamwork. Ajinkya Rahane and Murali Vijay stood out with the bat while Ishant Sharma and Bhuvi were the standout performers with the ball.

India batted first and managed to post a decent total of 295 on the back of Rahane's century. England, in response, accomplished a small lead of 24 runs as Kumar picked up a six-wicket haul for the visitors. Indian batting line-up looked more confident in the second innings as they managed to gain enough lead for England to chase a 300+ target. Murali Vijay scored 95 while Ravindra Jadeja managed a fifty as well.

The English team failed badly while chasing as Sharma picked up a seven-wicket haul to win the Man of the Match award for himself while also earned a rare overseas victory for his national side.

Bhuvneshwar's all-round performance

Of the very few positives from the otherwise dismal tour, Bhuvi's performance as an all-rounder was one of the top features. He won the Man of the Series award as he peaked as an all-rounder during the series. He was easily India's best bowler in the series and batted better than several batsmen as well.

He picked up 19 wickets in just 7 innings and also scored 247 runs. His tally of runs was more than some big batting names including Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara. Unfortunately, for him, the impressive performance ended up in a losing cause.

Vijay's solid batting

Murali VIjay's batting in the series showed his ability to deal with difficult situations. He began the tour in style by scoring his maiden overseas hundred in the first innings of the first test.

Although Rahane made a match-winning century at Lord's, Vijay's 95 in the second innings was equally impressive. Also, Vijay's batting was quite good in the other games of the series as well. A bit of support from his teammates would've altered the fate of the series for sure. The star opener was the only one from the Indian side to average over 40 in the series.

Kohli's unbelievably poor form

Virat Kohli for cricket fans is a synonym of consistency, perfection, and hard-work. Even a single below par performance from the maestro makes headlines.

He had the worst time of his life during the last tour of England. In the ten innings of the series, Kohli managed to score just 134 runs with a couple of ducks and a highest score of only 39. This was a poor show which no one had expected from a star performer like Kohli.

Fortunately, times have changed a lot. Back in 2014, Kohli was a solid name in the shorter formats only and was still trying to make his mark in the longest format.

Currently, he's a big name in Tests as well. Also, his superb performance in India's last tour of South Africa must've enhanced his confidence a lot so we can expect some stellar performances from India's captain this time provided that he's there with the team.