That’s the spirit!
Skipper Morgan leads the charge but England fall short in run chase
ENGLAND captain Eoin Morgan almost led his side to an unlikely victory in Cuttack, but in the end was left to admit that his men just didn’t have their ‘A’ game after another defeat to Virat Kohli’s India – who were inspired by centuries from Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni.
The tourists lost the second ODI by 15 runs as the hosts took an unassailable 2-0 lead, despite reducing the hosts to 25-3 with Chris Woakes grabbing three early wickets.
But a combination of brilliant batting and poor bowling allowed Yuvraj and Dhoni to rebuild with an emphatic 256-run partnership as India surged towards a mammoth 381-6 from their 50 overs.
Morgan gave England a chance with a brilliant ton of his own, while opener Jason Roy and Moeen Ali both hit impressive half-centuries. But the target always looked out of reach, and Morgan admitted his side didn’t reach the standards they believe they are capable of.
Morgan said: “We probably weren’t at our best again today with the ball or the bat, but we still competed. It’s tremendously disappointing to get so close, but not get over the line. India outplayed us again in very similar conditions to the first game.
“We showed a lot of fight. We have a huge amount of talent and we believe we can chase a score like that down. We’ve chased 350 before; we nearly chased 398 against New Zealand, so there is a tremendous amount of belief.
“Today we didn’t have the skill to convert that belief.”
EOIN Morgan’s first one-day century for England in 18 months was not enough to sustain the pursuit of a target that would have been their second highest successful chase in history.
Once again, England’s powerful batting line-up produced some memorable contributions but not one substantial enough to turn the game in their favour.
At least they had a centurymaker and Morgan did play an outstanding hand but there was simply too much left to do.
India, on the other hand, produced two – just as they had done in the first one-day international at Pune last Sunday.
The third and final match of the series at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Sunday is now a dead rubber.
England’s batsmen conspired to get themselves in good positions then waste them.
Jason Roy, who made 82, and Joe Root (54) put on 100 for the second wicket. But Root, after reaching his seventh fifty in nine ODI innings without converting to three figures, top-edged Ravi Ashwin’s fifth ball to the alwaysdangerous Virat Kohli at mid-wicket.
Once Jos Buttler went cheaply, England were almost done. Morgan added 93 for the sixth wicket with Moeen Ali and 50 in four overs with Liam Plunkett for the eighth.
It was a day of stats to make your eyes spin.
Yuvraj’s 150, made from 127 balls, was the highest ODI score by an Indian against England, beating his own record of 138. It was his first one-day century since 2011; his stand of 256 for the fourth wicket with Dhoni was the second highest for that wicket in ODI history.
But, as remarkable as the innings from Yuvraj and Dhoni were, England’s bowling left plenty to be desired.
Plans are all very well but you need to have the players to execute them and apart from Chris Woakes, England’s pace attack looked, well, one-paced and onedimensional.
Selecting Plunkett ahead of Adil Rashid was understandable on two counts, because the leg-spinthey ner has looked out of sorts on this trip so far and Plunkett’s extra brawn seemed like a good option. But he simply came on to the bat too invitingly.
Their obsession with shortpitched bowling looked, at best, naïve by two-thirds of the way through India’s innings.
There is so little margin for error on these flat Indian pitches that unless the bowler is spot on, will either be wided or carted to the boundary.
And there was a barely a yorker – or at least a well-executed one – to be seen.
And as Jake Ball attested before the match, the fact that two white balls are used in ODIs these days can actually make life harder, not easier, for bowlers.
Woakes, however, was outstanding.
After seeing the first ball of the match disappear through the covers for four, he picked two wickets in his second over, including the vital one of Kohli.
Kohli had driven his first and third balls for four, both off Woakes, and the already febrile atmosphere inside the Barabati Stadium turned up a notch or two.
But for once, it was not the great man’s day and, like the opener KL Rahul, he was nabbed, hanging back in the crease.
The two slip catches that Ben Stokes took to dismiss Rahul and Kohli were superb, both low to his left.
With the ball, though, Stokes some fearful tap, as did Plunkett and Ball. Both Stokes and Ball found themselves in the wars health-wise, too.
Stokes was hit in the chest by a ferocious return drive from Dhoni that bounced into the ground and rose up.
Then late in the innings, Ball, who had earlier failed to get a hand on a swirler running back at mid-on when Dhoni had 43, got in the way of a scorching drive from Hardik Pandya as he slipped in his follow through.
For a second it looked as though he might have been hit on the head but thankfully he only took a nasty blow on the hand.
It was another painful night for England.