'The mentality of this Indian team is like Australia in the 90s': Gough feels England battered after consecutive defeats

Former England fast bowler Darren Gough believes England have been unable to make the most of the momentum acquired by winning the first Test against India in Chennai. After losing the first match of the series by 227 runs, India made a roaring comeback in the second, winning the Test match by 317 runs and levelling the series. Ahmedabad hosted the third Test of the series – a Day/Night fixture which India needed less than two days to wrap up with a 10-wicket win.

While a lot of talk has been around the pitch and how it may not have been an ideal advert for Test cricket, Gough doesn’t agree that the surface was unplayable, although he did make it a point to mention that Test matches should certainly last for more than two days.

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"The momentum was with us, there’s no hiding from it. We didn’t expect the game to finish in two days – you don’t expect any Test match to finish in two days – but we’d put a side together that trusted each other and believed we could win in any situation," Gough told the PA news agency.

"It wasn’t an unplayable pitch, a bit of swing but not too quick. I’d say it was a good new ball pitch and if you got it right you were a handful."

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With England now having lost back-to-back Tests, Gough reckons the visiting team’s confidence is dented and that Joe Root and his side will find it tough to come back in the fourth and final Test starting Thursday. As far as India’s performance goes, Gough sees a lot of the mighty Australia that dominated cricket in the late 90s and 2000s in the current Indian team and its thought process.

“This England team have been battered in back-to-back games now and it’s going to be very difficult to come back from that. You can imagine the mentality of some of the lads will be quite fragile. The mentality of this India now is like Australia in the 90s: get a team by the throat and win, win, win,” Gough added.