India's loss at Lord's today

I'd be remiss to not include the devastating defeat India faced at Lord's today. What makes the defeat so devastating is not the fact that the team practically collapsed, but it's the fact that despite all adversities we came so close to winning the match (just 23 runs away!) and yet lost it to an odd ball that spun backwards!??!! I've never seen a leather ball spin backwards, and hit the stumps with such accuracy. Siraj's dismissal was comical, unfortunate and sad at the same time. It makes the defeat sting even further.

Not to add to the fact that this loss is juxtaposed with the famous win from 4 years ago, when Kohli and the boys gave the British batting lineup "60 overs of hell" in Kohli's words. Well we got pretty close to exactly that this time around. Batting wasn't easy on day 5 at this Lord's pitch and Carse, Archer and Stokes didn't make it any easier.

But the loss is also a reminder of two very important life lessons that I've grown to learn the hard-way: 

1. You may do everything right, yet end up on the losing side and face failure. Hardwork and diligence is no guarantee of success. 
2. There's hardly ever one failure point in a failure. We didn't lose this match because of Siraj's unlucky dismissal, we lost it because the dropped catches, the 61 extras across both innings, the unncessary run out of Rishabh Pant in first innings, all these things added up. 

Anyway, hopefully the team will bounce back. I've been pleasantly surprised by the young-ish team's performance this year. They've shown a lot of grit.