England in a spin Kuldeep inspires India to victory
Rohit Sharma hits 137 as India take series opener Hosts without Hales after side-muscle tear
Overheads and pitches. Not until they change – and the overhead conditions, like the pitches, are currently Indian – will England start to match the tourists, whatever the format.
India thoroughly outplayed England in the first of three one-day internationals (it was as well for the hosts that India’s opening bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar was injured). Spin was obviously the main difference between the sides, owing to the grip on England achieved by India’s left-arm wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav, but in batting too, where Rohit Sharma hit a characteristically sumptuous century, and in reversing the old ball, India were superior – as indicated by the margin of eight wickets with all but 10 overs to spare.
Less than a month ago on this same ground England had hammered 481 against Australia, but the most crucial point about a wristspinner such as Kuldeep – slowish, flighting and fizzing – is that he can turn the ball on any surface, from glass to grass. The pitch was drier and older when England’s two spinners got to work, yet their combined figures did not compare favourably with Kuldeep’s six wickets for 25 runs, the best figures by any spinner in an ODI in, or against, England.
England’s total of 268 could have been even worse if Virat Kohli, instead of withdrawing Kuldeep after he had taken three wickets in his first four overs, had chosen to bowl him straight through. Jos Buttler was thereby enabled to start his innings against lesser mortals and had reached 17 by the time he had to meet India’s ace. There was no trumping him but Buttler did share a stand of 93 with Ben Stokes which saved England’s face from becoming sunburned red, although the par total would have been around 340 to 350.
Alex Hales was badly missed because Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow got out as soon as Kuldeep came on, and two other members of England’s top five – Joe Root and Stokes – have yet to get going this season. Eoin Morgan, the captain, has not pulled his weight as an ODI batsman for the past year, averaging 23.
Hales, who made way for Root, was found to have torn a muscle in his side in the nets on Wednesday, not hit by a ball but simply in playing a stroke. He will be missed because he is one of very few England batsmen who has improved against Kuldeep in the fortnight they have been exposed to his mysteries.
If Kuldeep had not played himself into the Test side after running through England in the first T20 international, he has now, because his novelty has not worn off. Buttler is perhaps alone in that he can Maximum impact: Rohit Sharma clubs a six in his unbeaten innings of 137 detect from Kuldeep’s hand whether he is spinning the ball into the right-hander or away – or maybe by using the depth of the crease more than anyone else Buttler buys time to read it off the pitch.
Root was drafted in to neutralise India’s principal threat, and he may have read Kuldeep aright, but he underestimated the amount of turn and was pinned lbw. Like England’s reservoirs, Root’s runs are drying up this summer, in every format, and no sign of a flood in sight.
Kuldeep dismissed Roy and Stokes with reverse-sweeps; England did not conventionally sweep him, deterred by a short-leg, but if the fielder is not wearing a helmet the fielder is going to be too fine and the shot has to be worth trying – for English batsmen who grow up with the sweep, not with running down the pitch. Bairstow, pinned on the back foot by a googly, was convicted after India reviewed.
If the most culpable dismissal was Roy’s, because it exposed a new batsman in Root to Kuldeep, two out of six could be exonerated: Buttler, who was unfortunate in that he was caught down the leg side off a glance, and David Willey, who seized on one of Kuldeep’s few short balls as the overs ran out and was caught at deep mid-wicket.
But the worst of it was not that Kuldeep took six wickets in 10 overs, nor that England could not hit him for a boundary. It was that out of the 60 balls he bowled, 38 were dots. The normal four fielders were posted around the boundary between the 10th and 40th overs, and often a slip and leg-slip, which left three in-fielders saving one: yet England’s firm-wristed batsmen, most specifically Stokes, could not find a gap.
If there was a surprise in India’s innings it was that Sharma alone made a century, filled with the most wondrous off-drives. Kohli was on course for another until Adil Rashid finally spun a ball as much as Kuldeep and had him stumped. Otherwise England’s spinners were trounced as much as their samey seamers, and that was saying something.