Rearguard action by Krunal, Rahul gets India off the blocks
A century stand for the 6th wicket, a 98 by Dhawan, and fiery bowling by Krishna hand victory to hosts
MUMBAI: More debutants, this time in Krunal Pandya (with the bat) and Prasidh Krishna (with the ball), joined a long list of Indian newcomers—T Natarajan, Mohammed Siraj, Shubman Gill, Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav, to name the others—who appeared fully formed and battle hardened in their very first international outing this season. But in the case of Krunal and Krishna on Tuesday, their combined brilliance helped India get off to a winning start in a format in which England are world champions.
Amazingly, it was an all-new set of players from the recently concluded T20I series to put their hand up in the opening game of the 50-over series. Be it Shikhar Dhawan scoring 98, coupled with KL Rahul’s 62* and debutant Krunal’s 58* propelling India to 317/5 after being put in to bat on a wicket that had early moisture.
But it was Krunal’s knock— in his 112-run sixth wicket stand with Rahul, made in just 57 balls—that proved to be the real difference between the two teams, providing the all-necessary flourish to the Indian innings.
Krunal looked to be in the zone as soon as he walked in to bat at the fall of brother Hardik’s wicket in the 41st over. It may have been his debut, but Krunal had after all played at the big stage for a long time, in T20I cricket and with the Mumbai Indians in the IPL. But this time around, he also had serious batting form behind him, having struck 388 runs in five Vijay Hazare one-day games. So, he immediately began carting the English bowling in his favoured arc— between deep midwicket and deep-square leg. This allowed Rahul, who struggled through the T20I series, to slowly get into his groove too.
Well before Krunal and Rahul’s show with the bat, it looked to be Dhawan’s day after a long time. Thanks to India’s vast talent pool, Dhawan was dropped from opening the innings in the T20I series. But thanks to England dropping him a couple of times in Pune (once in the powerplay and again by Moeen Ali, which was a sitter), the veteran rode his luck and nearly made it count with a hundred.
As Dhawan paced his innings to perfection, peppering the square boundaries, captain Virat Kohli played yet another fluent innings of 56. But once Kohli got out in the 33rd over, mistiming a leg side whip shot, India began losing early momentum. Dhawan fell two runs short of three figures, then Iyer and Hardik didn’t get many either. It looked to be a middling finish until Krunal and Rahul got together and made the last 10 overs count.
When Jos Buttler, England’s stand-in captain, packed the leg side boundary, Krunal crunched a 145kph ball by Mark Wood through covers, before using more pace to chip him over third man for six. As many as 21 runs came from the 48th over bowled by Wood and an emotionally charged Krunal kept punching his own helmet and his partner’s gloves after each of the six sixes they planted into the empty stands. That emotion gave way to tears when the innings ended. “This one is for dad,” he said, weeping into Hardik’s shoulders.
For a while in England’s reply, it looked like the Indians hadn’t scored nearly enough. As early as the sixth over, opener Jonny Bairstow got stuck into the other debutant in Krishna, launching four lofted and booming drives past his head for two sixes and two fours. Krishna had begun his first spell for India with two sharp overs, getting the ball to move at 140 plus. But as he lost his length in the third, England found their mojo.
After that, it was an all-out attack by England’s openers. Jason Roy took a liking to the left arm spin of Krunal, whose initiation with the ball wasn’t quite as memorable. Thanks to Roy, it went for 16 runs. The English charge continued until the 15th over, when Roy became the first England wicket to fall on a total of 135. It was Krishna who took that wicket, as Roy was caught at point on 46.
Krishna, like other Indian debutants of late, believed in learning his lessons on the pitch. Soon, there was a passage of play where England lost three wickets in three overs as Shardul Thakur ended Bairstow’s charge on 94, before Eoin Morgan, batting with a split webbing, fell for 22 and Buttler for 2. Those three Thakur wickets wrested back the control of the match, before Krishna got three more wickets to cap off a memorable debut with 4/54. That ensured that England were bowled out for 251, with nearly eight overs to spare.
Brief scores: India 317/5 (Shikhar Dhawan 98, KL Rahul 62*, Ben Stokes 3/34) vs England 251 (Jonny Bairstow 94, Jason Roy 46, Prasidh Krishna 4/54). India won by 66 runs.