London [UK], July 31 : India's worst nightmare came true at The Oval after captain Shubman Gill lost his fifth consecutive toss against England on Thursday, and the nation's 15th successive, turning the 1/32678 odds aking the improbable happe.
Before the final Test of the gurelling series, India, losing its 15th consecutive toss, stood at 1/32678. In the absence of designated skipper Ben Stokes, Ollie Pope came in as the stand-in captain. He spun the coin, Gill called, and the staggering odds turned into reality as India became the first team to achieve the unfortunate feat.
India's luck with the coin hasn't changed despite the change in the captaincy helm. Gill took over the Test captaincy after his predecessor Rohit Sharma stepped down from the role. While India continued to be a victim of ill-fortune, Pope won his first toss in five Tests as captain.
Following another moment of misfortune, India's abysmal toss losses include two T20Is, eight ODIs and five Test matches. Overall, it is the 14th instance of a team losing all five tosses in a five-match Test series. The only previous instance in the 21st century came during India's tour of England in 2018.
Gill didn't dwell too much on the statistics while speaking to former head coach Ravi Shastri and said, "Don't mind losing the toss as long as we win the game. I was a bit confused yesterday about what to do. It was a bit overcast, but the wicket looks good; we'll look to post good runs in the first innings. It should be a good pitch for the bowlers. We've got three changes. Jurel, Karun and Prasidh in for Pant, Shardul and Bumrah. We look for a win every game we play, we've come close, and it's about that 5-10 per cent extra push, boys will be giving it their all."
India (Playing XI): Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill(c), Karun Nair, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel(w), Washington Sundar, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Mohammed Siraj
England (Playing XI): Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope(c), Joe Root, Harry Brook, Jacob Bethell, Jamie Smith(w), Chris Woakes, Gus Atkinson, Jamie Overton, Josh Tongue.
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