WHOLE NEW BALL GAME
England back to square one as India humiliate them in ten-wicket triumph
his second ball and Stokes to his first — a beauty from mohammed Shami that almost cut the Test captain in two while taking an inside edge that was superbly caught by Rishabh Pant.
At that stage, three wickets had fallen in seven balls. Roy dragged on a rare wide one from Bumrah to begin the slide, and when Bairstow fell to another good grab from Pant and Liam Livingstone was bowled by a big in-swinger from Bumrah, england were five down in the powerplay. Game over.
Any hopes of a recovery went when moeen Ali offered Prasidh Krishna a return catch and Buttler was caught on the boundary. David Willey and Brydon Carse at least lifted them above their all-time one-day low of 86 all out against Australia at old Trafford 21 years ago.
england could have had a wicket from the very first ball of the Indian reply, Shikhar Dhawan calling Sharma for a suicidal single off Willey to short mid-wicket. But it summed up their fortunes that Bairstow missed the stumps with his under-arm throw from close range, with Dhawan so short of his ground the england fielder could have run in and taken the bails off. Dhawan could also have been run out backing up by Willey but that was as close as england came to a breakthrough as Sharma eased into his task for an India side without Virat Kohli, apparently suffering from a mild groin strain. Reece Topley, so impressive in the T20 series, could not get his radar working here while Craig overton was not fast enough to trouble Sharma with the short ball. Carse had extra pace but disappeared for 38 runs in 3.4 overs and conceded three sixes. It is too early to panic about england’s white-ball cricket just yet but Buttler could do with one of the commanding performances so common under morgan — starting in the second game at Lord’s tomorrow.
‘It was a really disappointing day, and a tough loss to take,’ said Buttler. ‘There was a little bit in the wicket early on, and Bumrah bowled fantastically well, but we didn’t deal with it as well as we’d like.’
It was strange to think that england would have finished the day back on top of the ICC’s rankings had Ireland beaten topranked New Zealand over in Dublin.
Instead, Buttler (left) was left fielding the kind of questions morgan rarely had to deal with during his seven years in charge.
‘When you have had a lot of success over such a long period of time, it’s always going to be tough trying to continue that and evolve that,’ he said.
‘Pressure and expectation are always going to be there. That is the standard we have set ourselves over a long period of time and we deserve that expectation. This doesn’t change the fact we are a good team.’