England victory sets up thriller
India wrist spinners will have to rediscover their mojo after hosts rendered them ineffective in Cardiff
CARDIFF: England’s win in the second T20 has set the stage for a Sunday blockbuster at Bristol. It’s exactly how the organisers would have wanted -- teams at one win apiece and set for a grand finale. It will have crowds lining up to pack the stadium.
India had the measure of England at Old Trafford with Kuldeep Yadav rattling the home batsmen. England bounced back after facing the Merlyn bowling machine, preparing better for India’s wrist spinners, especially the chinaman bowler, while sticking to their strength – pace.
Ben Stokes will be back in the squad after recovering from a hamstring injury he suffered in the preceding series against Australia. It was at Bristol that Stokes got into a fight that led to his missing the Ashes Down Under. The legal case is still not over. It will give England captain Eoin Morgan a selection headache. Stokes proved his fitness by scoring 90 off 68 balls for Dur- ham on Thursday.
Competition for places is intense in the Indian team as well with Dinesh Karthik among those waiting to get a break.
After dominating England batsmen at Old Trafford, India’s wrist spinners together took one wicket at Sophia Gardens. Yuzvendra Chahal took that scalp while Kuldeep went wicketless as India failed to defend 148.
Chahal put it down to the England batsmen changing tactics. “Kuldeep bowled really well in the last game but in this game they played him more carefully. They chose which delivery to play or not play. With a score of 150, if we took it to the last over, then we bowled well.
“In the last game, they made too many mistakes. They took calculated risks here, didn’t hit against him in the first three overs, but did in the last over because we also had a chance to win,” said Chahal, pointing to Jonny Bairstow smashing Kuldeep for two sixes in the 17th over to reduce England’s target to 23 runs from 18 balls.
Morgan didn’t expect conditions to help his pacers to the extent it did. “Conditions out there surprised me quite a bit, the bounce was a lot more than we thought it was going to be,” he said.
Kuldeep was not a threat, and Morgan said: “The conditions were different. He’s a very good bowler and he’ll bowl well the majority of the time. With the pace and bounce of the wicket the seamers might have dominated a bit more, but I thought our plans were a lot clearer. We played him well.”
If England can neutralise the spin threat, there’s little to choose between the sides. Morgan smartly chose to stick with pace and David Willey, Jake Ball and Liam Plunkett gave nothing away, never allowing an Indian partnership to build and applying pressure till the very end.
Still, this is a well-rounded Indian attack, and Cardiff proved it. The way Indian seamers matched the England pace battery would have given Virat Kohli a lot of confidence.