After receiving a mauling at the hands of India in the first T20, Eoin Morgan’s England came back valiantly to edge the Men in Blue in a riveting thriller. With the series now locked at 1-1, Sunday’s T20 promises to be a humdinger with both sides going all-out in a bid to claim bragging rights before the all-important ODI series commences.
England, like all hosts do, made good use of their knowledge of the dimensions of Sophia Gardens. On a ground with long square boundaries, the hosts bolstered their team with hit-the-deck fast bowlers and tested India’s batsmen’s patience by bowling well within the stumps. The ploy worked as Rohit Sharma lost his patience in a bid to look for scoring avenues, and was followed suit by Dhawan’s bizarre run-out and accentuated by in-form KL Rahul losing his stumps.
At 3-22 India was already in a position from where it’s extremely difficult to claw back in Twenty20 cricket, but nevertheless, Kohli (47) and Raina (27) helped India re-build their innings with a 45-run partnership before a final-over flourish by MS Dhoni (32) in which he took Jake Ball for 22, helped the Men in Blue post a fighting total of 5-148 in 20 overs.
Venue:- County Ground, Bristol
Match Timings:- Sunday, July 08, 2018, 06:30 PM IST
England’s chase of 149 was always going to be defined as to how they approached the eight overs of India’s wrist-spinners. They lost Roy and Buttler early thanks to Umesh Yadav (2-36) before Joe Root was bamboozled by Chahal’s wrong’un. Hales and Morgan led England’s recovery with a 48-run partnership. But the defining moment of the game came when in Kuldeep Yadav’s 17th over where Bairstow nailed him for two consecutive sixes to reduce the equation down to 23 of the last three overs. Bhuvi accounted for Bairstow in the next over while giving away just three runs before giving away 12 in the final to hand England a nerve-wracking 5-wicket win. But it was really the eight over of Kuldeep and Chahal in which they scored 62 for the loss of Joe Root, proving to be an ultimate differentiator in the end.
With 31 degrees set to greet the players at Bristol, one can expect another slow pitch where stroke-making could be difficult. In 4 T20I matches played at the venue, teams bowling first have won on every occasion.
Total Matches – 4
Matches won batting first – 0
Matches won bowling first – 4
Average 1st Inns scores – 139
Average 2nd Inns scores – 141
England-
Eoin Morgan (c), Jonny Bairstow, Jake Ball, Joe Root, Jos Buttler, David Willey, Sam Curran, Tom Curran, Alex Hales, Chris Jordan, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Moeen Ali, Jason Roy, Dawid Malan, Ben Stokes
India-
Virat Kohli (c), Shikhar Dhawan, Siddarth Kaul, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Hardik Pandya, Umesh Yadav, KL Rahul, Krunal Pandya, Manish Pandey, MS Dhoni (wk), Dinesh Karthik, Yuzvendra Chahal
The probable ENG vs IND playing 11 is listed below.
England:-
Wicket-keeper: Jos Butler
Batsmen: Jason Roy, Eoin Morgan, Alex Hales, Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root/Ben Stokes
All-rounder: David Willey
Bowlers: Chris Jordan, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Jake Ball
India:-
Wicket-keeper: MS Dhoni
Batsmen: Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan
All-rounder: Hardik Pandya
Bowlers: Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav