Youngsters' response to pressure helps Ind trump England

A five-wicket haul on his 100th Test by Ravichandran Ashwin broke the back of England's batting line-up as India won the fifth and final Test by an innings and 64 runs at Dharamsala on Saturday.

India has won the series 4-1.

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"To win a Test series, a lot of things have to fall into place and go right and our players did that, and that's why we are standing here with this series result," India captain Rohit Sharma said after the match.

India were without several frontline players and fielded five debutants in the series as batting stalwart Virat Kohli missed the series for personal reasons, seamer Mohammed Shami was not available due to injury and batter KL Rahul missed the last four Tests. All-rounder Ravindra Jadeja also missed the second in Visakhapatnam after he and Rahul were injured in the opener in Hyderabad.

Rohit was pleased with how the likes of Dhruv Jurel and Sarfaraz Khan responded to the challenge.

"All of these guys have played a lot of cricket even if they have not got test experience and they do understand how to play the game. When you win a Test, everything has to fall into place. Lot of things we did right through the match. [Absent stars] At some stage, people are going to go, we know that. All these guys are short on experience but they've played a lot of cricket. 

"It's just that I've got to nurture them. They responded very well to pressure throughout the series and there were a lot of times where we came back from behind during the series. Credit goes to the entire team for that. We talk about scoring runs, but it is as important to take 20 wickets to win the Test match. Everyone, all the bowlers came and responded. They wanted to make a difference with the ball in hand," Rohit added.

While England's batters put on a shambolic show against Ashwin and Co, Root waged a lone battle but did not get much support from the other end and was the last man out.

It was England's first series defeat under captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon "Baz" McCullum, who have championed an ultra-aggressive approach to Test cricket.

"We are man enough and big enough to accept that we have been outplayed by the better team since the first Test," Stokes said afterwards.

"We are going to take the positives from this series with the amount of cricket that we have got coming up and I'm really looking forward to drive this team even further forward."

Kuldeep was adjudged player of the match primarily for his five-wicket haul in the first innings.

India opener Jaiswal won the player of the series for his aggregate of 712 runs, which included two double hundreds, from nine innings.

This was India's 17th consecutive Test series win at home, where they have not lost a Test series since an Alastair Cook-led England bested them in 2012.