7 similarities between India’s Test victory at Lord’s in 1986 and in 2014 : India for the first time defeated England at the ‘Mecca of Cricket’, Lord’s way back in June 1986.
They had to wait for a period of 28 years to repeat the feat at the same venue when they got the better of the ‘Queen’s Men’ in 2014.
Analysing into these two victories, certain similarities come to the fore. Seven of them are :
- Victory came to India three years after winning the ICC World Cup. India first time won the tournament (Prudential Cup) in 1983 and then won the same for the second time in 2011.
- Both the teams were led by World Cup winning captains. The 1986 team was led by Kapil Dev while the 2014 team was led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni
- The 1986 team had the opener in Krishnamachari Srikkanth from Tamil Nadu while the 2014 team had the opener, Murali Vijay also representing the same state team
- Chetan Sharma took 5+ wickets in the 1986 encounter, while Ishant Sharma did the same in the 2014 clash, giving a ‘Sharma’ touch to both the victories
- Both teams had ‘Binny’ in their Playing XI. While the 1986 team sported Roger Binny, the 2014 team had his son Stuart Binny. Incidentally both the father and the son scored 9 runs off 19 deliveries in the first innings in their respective matches
- Dilip Vengsarkar of Mumbai scored a century (126*) in the first innings in 1986 while Ajinkya Rahane gave a Mumbai flavour to the 2014 victory by scoring a century (103) in the first innings. Both of them struck 16 boundaries on their way to the century. Vengsarkar had 16 fours while Rahane had 15 fours and a six
- Ravi Shastri, left-arm spinning all-rounder, was part of the Playing XI in 1986, while Ravindra Jadeja, left-arm spinning all-rounder represented the 2014 Playing XI