India vs England: Iyer blitz, Gill’s poise guide hosts to easy win
Nagpur: India beat England by four wickets in an ODI, experimenting with strategies ahead of the Champions Trophy, despite Rohit Sharma's poor form.
Nagpur: Starved of an ODI for six years and having had only three international matches across formats in the interim, for the 44,900 spectators this match was about coming out to celebrate an Indian win.
But for Rohit Sharma’s India each of the three matches in this series against England is also about trying out ideas, experimenting with combinations and firming up plans before the Champions Trophy that starts in a fortnight. With a four-wicket win inside 39 overs on Thursday, India got some strong ticks around their strategy.
Rohit’s form though remains a big concern. His batting has always been pleasing on the eye. But, of late, Rohit has lost the habit of scoring and his modes of dismissal have been ugly. Rohit walked out chasing 249 under lights with his new batting partner Yashasvi Jaiswal because Virat Kohli had to sit out with a sore right knee.
Rohit lasted seven deliveries, looked tentative and went away before he could change gears. He was late in transferring weight to an inswinger from Saqib Mahmood and spooned a catch to mid-on.
Shreyas Iyer is a batter who can goes unnoticed in a line-up studded with heavyweight names. But he has been as commanding as any Indian batter in ODIs. If anything, some of Iyer’s technical shortcomings in other formats tend to weigh down his utility.
Such as his game against the short ball. Iyer settled the issue early on Thursday. With India in a spot of bother after their openers were back in the hut in the fifth over, Iyer knew England pacers would resort to the short-ball ploy on a pitch that had enough carry. Iyer used his backfoot trigger, discovered elevation from his high bat swing and sent Jofra Archer 83 meters deep over midwicket. The next ball was short outside off. Iyer was waiting again. He ramped it over third for another six. In the space of two deliveries, Iyer had weakened England’s resolve to bounce him out.
Iyer remained positive all through and with Gill eased the pressure with a 64-ball 93-run stand. With reverses sweeps, sweetly-timed drives and cuts against spin and pace, Iyer’s 59 (36, 9x4, 2x6) allowed India to stay ahead of the asking rate. But there was still some work to do.
India promoted Axar Patel, one of their few left-handed batting options. The plan worked like a charm. Just as Gill had been content to let Iyer hit the high notes, he was happy to see Axar take on Adil Rashid and the other part-time spinners. Gill was happy to punish the bad ball, but content to keep the scoreboard moving with singles and twos. He couldn’t finish it like Kohli would, but through his 87 (96b, 14x4) Gill exercised the middle-overs’ batting control the format demands.
England had begun their batting on the front foot. Before spin came on, openers Phil Salt and Ben Duckett had exploded with a 75-run stand by the ninth over. The visitors were then pushed back by Harshit Rana’s twin blows.
Soon enough, Ravindra Jadeja put his hand up and, getting some bite off the surface, managed to squeeze the scoring rate. Varying his speeds, Jadeja was able to hurry Joe Root (19) and got him leg-before with an arm ball. At 111/4 in the 19th over, England were in trouble.
That’s when Jos Buttler and young Jacob Bethell were able to stitch a 59-run partnership. In hindsight, Rohit might have wanted to use more of Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav. That said, it may well be that India wanted to test other resources.
It helped that England were not keyed up with Buttler (52) gifting Axar a wicket off a loosener. That allowed India to take charge. When Jadeja returned to bowl during the death overs, it took him no time to get Bethell. The 21-year-old was visibly uncomfortable, struggling to pick Jadeja’s spin in the middle overs. Eventually, Bethell (51) missed a sweep to be trapped in front of the wicket.
Jadeja (9-1-26-3) was the pick of the spinners. Axar (7-0-38-1) didn’t look as penetrative. If India are going to take Varun Chakravarthy to Dubai, it is likely to be at the expense of either Axar or Washington Sundar.
Among other things, what India were keeping an eye on Mohammed Shami’s bowling. Playing his first ODI after 15 months, Shami’s (8-1-38-1) rhythm looked good. With the new ball, Shami was accurate but felt the impact of the openers’ onslaught. But his cleaning up Brydon Carse with a length ball at the backend had all the makings of a typical Shami dismissal.
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