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There was heavy dew somehow, and we were expecting to get a different type of innings, and it was totally in the favor of England. And unlike any matches through the tournaments, you could see them clearing up the dew during the break.
Woakes gets – Gill, Iyer, Wiley gets Kohli
The pitch seemed hard to bat, but you can’t take away the bowling effort of this particular spell. It looked like they were choking India.
KL and Rohit stayed on for a while. They built a decent partnership, but the scoreboard moved slowly, and 91 (111) stabilized the Indian innings. KL’s dismissal was unfortunate!
Iyer sighs! He gets out to another short ball, I can’t even! I wish someone else could take his place; it’s been six matches. Just put Ishan Kishan in; I mean, at least the kid is hungry, and he tonks a few!
KL and Rohit stayed on for a while. They built a decent partnership, but the scoreboard moved slowly, and 91 (111) stabilized the Indian innings. KL’s dismissal was unfortunate!
Iyer sighs! He gets out to another short ball, I can’t even! I wish someone else could take his place; it’s been six matches. Just put Ishan Kishan in; I mean, at least the kid is hungry, and he tonks a few!
That brings us to the 6th point: SKY helps! He joins in and plays and adds some valuable runs; their partnership only clocked 33 (39), but SKY survives till the 47th over and just falls short of a 50 by one run. This was a very different innings of SKY from what we’ve seen him do in the ODIs. In the last match, he was run out, and at one point, he avoided a double when Rohit called, and you could see Rohit’s reaction, saying, “I would’ve made it” because the fielder was targeting Rohit’s end.
Also, surprisingly, his average in ODIs has been low. I can think of other players being the other way around, like Bavuma and Markram, but SKY is built differently, and it’s nice to see him take responsibility and build out these innings.
This takes us to the next point, the batting collapse of the English team; I know everyone’s complaining, but man, if your top guy Root and your sledgehammer Stokes are dismissed like that, you can’t expect the team to do well. I think in the entire world, I admire a lot of English batters, but this was dismal. Even the captain, one of the biggest hitters in the world, is looking extremely nervous on the field. But anyway, I think there are enough discussions about their selection, etc, on the Internet so I don’t want to go there!
Malan’s dismissal was a classic, but Joe Root’s dismissal created some talking points for us; no, it’s not that, Nick. I think most people with common sense are clear that it was not from the bat because if you watch the replay, the spike was not coming, but the ball was passing through the bat.
But the exciting part was him having a second slip, so when Bumrah comes in and bowls into him, he’d be forced to play on the back foot, and that’s precisely what happened. Root looked flummoxed with that footwork, probably the first time. He’s so brilliant, but this was just brilliant.
This takes us to the next point, the batting collapse of the English team; I know everyone’s complaining, but man, if your top guy Root and your sledgehammer Stokes are dismissed like that, you can’t expect the team to do well. I think in the entire world, I admire a lot of English batters, but this was dismal. Even the captain, one of the biggest hitters in the world, is looking extremely nervous on the field. But anyway, I think there are enough discussions about their selection, etc, on the Internet so I don’t want to go there!
There’s nothing to say but that TURN! Just look at that! That Livingstone ball could’ve been a wicket, and they didn’t review it. I saw Rohit saying it could be height, but no one was interested in examining that, and Living just got away, but not for too long. He probably scored ten more runs, and it was Kuldeep who took him out with a peach!
The build-up to this wicket felt like I was watching a test match! There were at least 13 dot balls before his dismissal, and you could see Ben Stokes was getting impatient because he’s one of those guys who wants to take the attack to the bowler, but this time, it was so disappointing. I mean, that felt like the worst shot selection that time, especially when your team is chasing 230, and you know the batters in your group aren’t exactly in form, so you needed to build your innings. But that was just disappointing. I love Ben Stokes, and I was looking forward to a knife fight between him and Bairstow, but yeah, that didn’t happen, and Shami just nailed that ball.
Here’s the build-up of that over from Shami,
He’s coming in, staying so close, and I think he just took advantage of Stokes’ impatience, and I saw it coming; I knew it was just a matter of time before he would fall, and he did!
What a shame! He’s coming in charging, and the tension was palpable. All Stokes had to do was survive this storm, but I think Morgan said he was trying to get the ball on the outfield so it could absorb some moisture, and hopefully, then it would stop moving so much.
Then he picked out Bairstow, Mo Ali, and Rashid, and he was breathing fire! Every ball today from him was an event!
I hope they don’t keep him out of the match because he’s in peak form right now; I mean, how dare you keep him out in the first four matches! I’ve said this before, and I’ll repeat it: Shami often gets overshadowed by Bumrah’s popularity. When Bumrah was out for a long time, he carried the team, and hopefully, he continues to do that till the final and beyond!
Outro: English is obviously not having a great tournament, and I love a bit of misery for the arrogant English, but I also love some of the players, and I wanted to see some real action from them, but I guess I see you at the T20 WC because apparently, only top 7 team will qualify for the Champions Trophy. We are not seeing WI and England this year.
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