India ended a painstaking 28-year-long wait for a Test win against England at the Lord’s and pulled off one of their finest wins on away soil on this day. In a brilliant performance by the then captain MS Dhoni’s young, in-transition brigade, they upstaged England at the end of a memorable five-day contest at the Home of Cricket. India defended the target of 319 on a challenging Lord’s pitch that offered pacers significant seam movement up front and uneven bounce as the strip dried later on. Under pressure after his side missed out on similar victories in Johannesburg and Wellington earlier that season, Dhoni required his bowlers to come to the rescue and as always, his tried-and-trusted workhorse Ishant Sharma put his hand up. Ishant produced his finest spell in Tests on a gloomy afternoon at the Lord’s, finishing with astonishing figures of 7/74 to help dismiss England for 223. In an inspired burst, Ishant used his height to great advantage as he broke past a gritty fifth wicket partnership between Joe Root and Moeen Ali by getting the latter to fend off a bouncer to short leg and opened the gates for a bizarre English collapse after lunch. One after the other, the Englishmen kept trying to pull and hook Ishant’s well-directed bouncers and were out caught in the deep. Ishant went from ‘Unlucky Ishant’ to the game-changer for Dhoni and left India on the brink of their first win against England at the Lord’s since 1986. Left-armer Ravindra Jadeja then got No.11 James Anderson run-out to close off the contest and usher in the most memorable celebrations for the visitors. Apart from Ishant, ace swing bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar stood up to the challenge by taking an instrumental 6/82 in the first-innings, where the Indians kept England’s lead down to just 24 after Ajinkya Rahane’s most courageous 103 had taken the tourists to 295 on Day 1. In the third-innings, the in-form Murali Vijay top-scored with a 95 while Bhuvneshwar (52) and Jadeja (68) produced invaluable fifties to extend the target past the 300 mark. On a pitch designed for English pacers to dominate and hammer the visitors, India turned the tables on them with a spirited performance that will be remembered forever.