BATTERED Spinners and Rahul embarrass England with thumping eight-wicket victory
ENGLAND started their summer trial by spin as India’s IPL kings dished out a hiding at an Old Trafford full of support.
And they didn’t even need Virat Kohli to do the damage with the bat as KL Rahul (celebrating with Kohli, below) grabbed 101 not out in the win by eight wickets with 10 balls to spare.
It was spinner Kuldeep Yadav who started the rot with a sensational return of 5-24 from his four overs as England’s phobia against spin reared its ugly head again.
“They played well and it wasn’t our day today,” said skipper Eoin Morgan. “It was a game of fine margins and we need to be better.”
On a dry, sunbaked pitch that was taking turn, England’s batsmen would have had a better chance of picking the winning lottery numbers than which way the ball was turning.
The left-arm wrist spinner left England’s batsmen utterly clueless as he bamboozled them one by one, making two of the very best – Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root – look like novices.
They both faced one ball and they were both stumped by MS Dhoni’s fast hands, even if Root could have got back.
“He’s a very good bowler,” added Morgan. “And is going to be a very big threat for us in this series. We need to be better about the way we go about our business.
“We’ll assess how we play him and we need to play him better in the next game but, when the wicket is that good, you need to take attacking options.”
If it wasn’t for Jos Buttler and his purple patch of form that brought him 69 from 46 balls, this game would have been an even greater embarrassment for the home side, and it is fair to say that he likes his ‘home’ ground.
The Lancashire man rarely gets to play here for his county but, in his two games here for England this summer, he has made 179 runs and shown the rest of the top order how to bat.
Buttler’s first scoring shot was a scoop over the keeper’s head for four and he continued in that same swashbuckling style until he was out.
He added 50 in double quick time with Jason Roy but, once their partnership was broken, he was forced to watch from the other end, as his teammates spectacularly failed to deal with India’s spin threat.
And to think that Ravi Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja will not get to flex their spinning fingers until the Test series.
Where England’s batsmen spluttered, the Indians purred as they took Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali apart, as if it were the easiest thing in the world.