Given that there is little to separate between the Indian cricket team and England, one bad period of play and the game is lost. The hosts learnt that lesson the hard way at the County Ground, Bristol, when despite a solid batting performance, one period of poor play when they lost the wickets of Eoin Morgan, Alex Hales, Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow cost them the match and the series.
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In contrast, anchored a sublime unbeaten 100 by Rohit Sharma, the Indian batsmen never took their foot off the pedal to cruise home.
Captain Morgan admitted they were 20-30 runs short. “I think so – probably between 20 and 30 – 225 or 235 would have been more of a difficult chase. India never really got away from us, but we struggled to take wickets,” said Morgan.
{{/usCountry}}Captain Morgan admitted they were 20-30 runs short. “I think so – probably between 20 and 30 – 225 or 235 would have been more of a difficult chase. India never really got away from us, but we struggled to take wickets,” said Morgan.
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“They kept up with the rate, and then it was a position in the 16th or 17th over they could take the game away from us – which is disappointing.”
Counting the positives, Morgan said: “We did a lot of things right today – particularly that platform set. Jason Roy and Jos Buttler were brilliant up front, and almost gave us a license to allow ourselves to think about 220.”
“But the execution of our shots didn’t really match up with getting to that total.
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“On a good wicket, small ground, we should be better than that.”
Coming into the series, England had bene playing outstanding cricket. They did brilliantly against Australia, making a clean sweep of their one-day and twenty series. But, India has straightaway come and raise the bar. He admitted, they will need a close to perfect game to put it across India. “I’d say close to (a perfect game),” said Morgan.
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“I don’t think we have to play a completely perfect game every time (to beat them) – we proved that at Cardiff. But certainly today they had their day.”