Rohit Sharma hit a world record-equalling third T20 century to seal a seven wicket victory over England
Well, we saw it coming. I said that if Rohit Sharma got a hundred, Indian would win, but that was after he had breezed to fifty. The true Mystic Meg here is a reader, Pratik Dubey, who predicted at half-time that India would win with an over to spare.
One day there will be T20 courses on offer at leading universities, and Sharma’s innings will be used as a model. It was cruel yet delicate, mostly elegant cricket shots with a smattering of modern ingenuity. He was ably supported by Rahul (19 off ten), Kohli (43 off 29, not too stellar to play a supporting role) and especially Pandya (33 off only 14). Sending a hitter up the order often backfires, but not today.
With seven wickets and eight balls to spare, as Panda lofts Jordan for one last four. That is a hammering. India win the series, and England, in hindsight, did well to take it to a third match.
Mid-19th over: India 195-3 (Sharma 100, Pandya 23) Sharma leathers a drive over cover off Jordan, then dabs for a single – and that is a fantastic hundred, off only 56 balls. Man of the Match will not be a tricky decision.
18th over: India 190-3 (Sharma 95, Pandya 23) Willey is a man with a plan, at least – two third men, which means wide yorkers yet again. Sharma adjusts and plays a lap-sweep, almost for six. Pandya adds an actual six with a Caribbean back-foot drive, and a four as Panda, one-handed, swishes a full toss past backward point. And another four, as the fine third man comes in and Panda dabs it past him. That’s 20 off the over and 35 off the last two. The game is up for England.
17th over: India 170-3 (Sharma 90, Pandya 12) Just when the plug was in, Morgan brings back Jake Ball, his greenest bowler. Pandya, seizing the moment, lofts a length ball for four, then glides a yorker for four more, before Sharma completes the three-card trick with a pull for four. That’s the game, surely.
You can’t keep a good person down for long, and here’s John Starbuck. “On TMS, they are telling us how the progress of England’s footballers means that cricket match times next Wednesday are being rearranged. Fortunately, it’s the short-form games at the moment, otherwise the wandering planet known as Gareth Southgate would be changing Tests.”
16th over: India 155-3 (Sharma 85, Pandya 2) Rashid’s final over, and he keeps the pressure on by conceding only four. That’s the two good overs England desperately needed, but now they need to go for the kill. Slips please!
15th over: India 151-3 (Sharma 83, Pandya 0) So the 150 comes up, and the third fifty took only 25 balls. But then Jordan, who had already restored a sliver of order, gets the wicket of Kohli – not, for once, the big one, as Sharma is running the show, but still, quite a coup. India are one run ahead of England at the same stage. They need 48 off 30 balls.
Jordan bowls a yorker, Kohli slams it back, and Jordan takes another great catch, if only in self-defence. The game needed that.
14th over: India 148-2 (Sharma 82, Kohli 42) Plunkett manages a rare dot by spotting Kohli’s shimmy and aiming wide of off. Next ball, Kohli sees the width coming, trots out there and lofts it over extra cover for a staggering six. Does his gym habit now extend to strengthening his wrists? Sharma, not to be outdone, blasts a one-bounce four over cover. Plunkett, England’s senior one-day seamer, has gone for 42 off three overs.
13th over: India 135-2 (Sharma 77, Kohli 34) Morgan keeps tinkering, but this is one of those days when 13 fielders wouldn’t be enough. Jordan returns and Sharma again plays his glide through the slips. Then there’s a straight drive that is so fierce it almost dumps Stokes in the crowd. He collects it in his midriff, fires it in, saves three and signs an autograph. Class. It’s a decent over from Jordan until the last ball, clipped for six. This partnership is worth 73 off 7.4 overs.
12th over: India 125-2 (Sharma 69, Kohli 32) Rashid continues, only to find Kohli giving him the charge and stroking the most classical of all today’s sixes, straight back over Rashid’s head. Only three off the other five balls, but no wicket, which is what counts.
11th over: India 116-2 (Sharma 67, Kohli 25) Morgan sends for Plunkett, who almost nabs Kohli with a well-aimed bouncer. Kohli plays a pull that’s more of a flap and just gets away with it as Bairstow, racing in from deep square, can’t reach it. Sharma, whose eye is beyond in, pulls for six, then dabs for four, through the vacant first slip. Come on Eoin, post some catchers. It may be your only hope.
10th over: India 100-2 (Sharma 56, Kohli 20) Rashid drops short for a third time in seven balls, and Kohli pounces like a good predator, cutting him for four. Another longish hop goes unpunished, as Kohl’s whip finds the man at deep square. The hundred is up and WinViz has changed sides to back India, quite understandably. England badly need wickets. Let’s have a Test-match field for a couple of overs.
9th over: India 91-2 (Sharma 54, Kohli 13) After seven miserly deliveries, Stokes tries a bouncer and gets flipped for four by Sharma, who goes to an outstanding fifty off just 28 balls. If he gets a hundred, India will surely win.
8th over: India 82-2 (Sharma 48, Kohli 10) On comes Adil Rashid, who needs to be as parsimonious as his opposite number, Chahal. He drops too short, giving Sharma the chance to pepper the cover sweeper, who saves one four but can’t save another. Maybe spin isn’t the answer after all. Thanks to Stokes’s recall, Morgan can afford to lose faith in one of his bowlers.
7th over: India 72-2 (Sharma 40, Kohli 8) Stokes is out of practice, especially with the ball, but he is a presence, and he has a plan – wideish yorkers, mixed with the odd inswinger. “He’s almost gone death-bowling,” says Ian Ward, “in the seventh over.” Only two off it: the modern version of a maiden.
6th over: India 70-2 (Sharma 39, Kohli 7) So Ball’s return produces another over with everything. A six from Rahul, a great catch in the deep, and then Kohli gets under way, ominously, with a glide for two, a whip for four, and a push for a single. India remain on top, but need to settle now the powerplay is done. And here comes Stokes.
That is an even better catch. Rahul, fresh from smacking Ball for six, tries it again and somehow Jordan races to his right at long-on, dives and clings on. So far India are only getting out to great catches, whereas England mostly got themselves out.
5th over: India 56-1 (Sharma 38, Rahul 13) Now Plunkett comes on, but the carnage continues. Sharma, using his wrists, cover-drives for four, and then Rahul plays a lofted glide for six. That’s the fifty up off 29 balls. Sharma has faced 19 of them and made two runs a ball, a rate given to few – though Roy managed it earlier.
4th over: India 43-1 (Sharma 33, Rahul 5) Flagrantly disregarding my advice, Morgan brings on Chris Jordan and pays the price. The first ball is smacked to the cover boundary by Sharma, who follows up with a straight six. And another six, as Jordan stops short and Sharma plays a front-foot hook. India are on top, just.
“Greetings from San Francisco.” Greetings from London, Tim Woollias. “Was Stokes for Root the right call? Yes we have 6 bowlers but 5 are seamers, Stokes for Ball and leave Root or Mooen to give second spin option?” Good point. Both teams seem to have placed too much faith in seam, which has been going to all parts as the batsmen relish the pace on the ball.
3rd over: India 27-1 (Sharma 17, Rahul 5) That wicket may not do England much good. Dhawan was out of touch, whereas Rahul is in sublime form, as he shows, first ball, with a straight push for four. All three batsmen have taken a step down the track to Willey, who does well to concede only six off that over. Morgan may need to get Plunkett and Stokes on, just to push them back.
That is a fabulous grab. Wiley strays onto the legs, Dhawan flicks, and Jake Ball, diving to his left at short fine leg, pulls off a catch so sharp that I thought it had to be Stokes.
2nd over: India 21-0 (Sharma 16, Dhawan 5) Jake Ball starts with an awful loosener, a bouncer that doesn’t bounce, and Sharma gives it what it deserves with a swivel pull. Ball recovers well with four balls that go for only two singles, only to follow Sharma to leg and go for another four, whipped to long leg.
1st over: India 11-0 (Sharma 7, Dhawan 4) David Willey starts with an inswinger and an LBW appeal, as Rohit Sharma plays outside it – a good shout but going over leg stump. Then he beats him with the other one, the ball that holds its line outside off. Back to the inswinger, and Sharma chips it for six! Quite a classy way to get off the mark. Dhawan joins in with a cover push for four, calm as you like, and India are ahead of the rate.
So who’s going to win this series? It looks like 50-50 again, as it was for much of the last match. “I think England lost their way there,” says Pratik Dubey, “and India is going to chase that down with an over left.”
Well that was bizarre, an innings of two halves. First England went off like the fireworks we had at the start, as Buttler and Roy added 94 off only 7.4 overs. Then came a classic English collapse, either side of a sparkling stand between Stokes and Bairstow.
The run rate plummeted from 12 an over while the openers were together to a mere eight for the rest of the innings. It may still be enough, but, after recovering from that early mauling, India have the force with them. Don’t go away.
Rashid, after slashing a four, misses the last ball. Dhoni has one glove off ready for the run-out, and that’s what happens – a direct hit. The coolest veteran in town.
The dink that did for Roy and Hales now does for Plunkett too, giving Dhoni his fifth catch. You couldn’t make it up.
19th over: England 191-7 (Jordan 2, Plunkett 7) So Yadav sees off Willey, only to find Liam Plunkett coming out and clipping his first ball for six. This whole innings has been a caricature of contemporary cricket.
It’s that offside yorker again – Willey deflects it off the inside edge onto off stump. Dear old England, always able to conjure up a collapse.
18th over: England 181-6 (Willey 0, Jordan 0) A fine comeback from Panda, who started with an over for 22 and ends with four for 38. Southgateian stuff.
Another one! Bairstow belts a four past extra cover but then nicks a yorker, perhaps trying to repeat that block for six. England again have two new batsmen at the crease.
Stokes, who’s done well considering the rust, gets caught in two minds and chips to long-off, where Kohli takes the simplest of catches. End of a very frisky partnership, 37 off 22 balls.
17th over: England 176-4 (Stokes 14, Bairstow 20) Yadav returns, to be greeted by Bairstow with a slog-glance for four and a block for six! It was the wide yorker again, and Bairstow just met it with a prop, and such good timing that it flew over cover. That may have been the liveliest dead bat in history. Stokes then plays a lap for four, to add insult to incredulity.
16th over: England 159-4 (Stokes 9, Bairstow 10) India have served up barely a single yorker, and maybe this shows why: Kaul bowls a wide low full toss, which Stokes deflects for four, and then something similar but not as full, which yields two. Trying a Caribbean cover drive, Stokes throws the bat, literally – it ends up somewhere near short fine leg. “Good over,” says Nasser, “just nine from it.” Sign of the times.
15th over: England 150-4 (Stokes 3, Bairstow 7) Chahar’s last over, and he finishes as he began, by conceding a six – Bairstow goes back and flicks him over square leg. That was the third ball of Bairstow’s innings. Chahar finishes with one for 43, which could have been worse.
14th over: England 140-4 (Stokes 0, Bairstow 0) I was just thinking, what is Stokes, who is rusty, doing coming in ahead of Bairstow, who is in radiant form? Makes no difference now, as both are out there, with not a run or a ball to their name. Well done Pandya, again. Game very much on.
They are throwing it away. Hales pulls imperiously for six, then inexplicably plays the same little dab that got Roy out, and goes the same way.
No sooner is he reprieved than Morgan plays the same stroke again. Dhoni calls for it and pouches it safely. Are England throwing this away?
Morgan touches the sky with a miscue, giving an easy chance for Chahal, but it’s dropped and poor Chahal gets a nasty bump on the head as he falls over in the process. He goes off for treatment.
13th over: England 132-2 (Hales 24, Morgan 4) Chahal, in his final over, keeps it respectable until Hales flat-bats a wide one past the cover sweeper and thumps a drive back past the bowler. But still, figures of 4-0-30-0, on a day like this, are almost exemplary.
12th over: England 120-2 (Hales 13, Morgan 3) Pandya, whose first over was a 22-run horror show, picks himself up, dusts himself off and serves up something very decent. He beats Hales with a straight one that goes clean over middle stump, making Bristol look like Perth, and then hits him on the helmet with a spicy bouncer (no harm done, happily). Only two off the over. Give that man a medal.
11th over: England 118-2 (Hales 12, Morgan 2) Order is restored by Chahal, until the last ball, which goes for four as Hales brings out the slog-sweep. Still, the run-rate has been pegged back to below 11.
10th over: England 111-2 (Hales 7, Morgan 1) This is the over with everything. Roy wallops a six, then gets out, whereupon Chahar keeps the new batsmen quiet until he forgets the one-bouncer rule and delivers a no-ball. The resulting free hit is a full toss, the freest of hits for Hales, who clips a six over long-on. Off his three overs, Chahar has one for 33.
No sooner has he blasted another six than Roy tries that dab-cut again, to a slower ball, and gets a nick. The firework display is over, and that’s a fine first international scalp for Deepak Chahar.
9th over: England 97-1 (Roy 61, Hales 1) Suddenly it’s a different game. Hales, good as he was on Friday night, would far rather start against the fast bowlers, and Roy settles for a singles, making you wonder if he draws some of his confidence from the way Buttler is playing. Only three off the over, a triumph for Chahal, and an embarrassment for Kohli, who must wish he hadn’t jettisoned Kuldeep.
8th over: England 94-1 (Roy 58, Hales 0) Buttler was playing the role Roy took early on, nudging singles to get out of his partner’s way. Paul continues and Roy belts another straight six. A dinky late cut for a single to mix things up, then Buttler gets back into the act with a top-edged pull for four over Dhoni’s head – only to perish as England finally get intoxicated by their own stroke play. Game on?
Good Kaul! Amid the carnage, Kohli keeps Kaul on, and he persuades Buttler to miss a straight one. End of a phenomenal partnership.
7th over: England 82-0 (Roy 52, Buttler 29) Kohli turns to spin, as you would after being heavily punished for leaning towards seam. Chahal comes on (apologies if the spellcheck calls him Chapel). Roy is dropped again, top-edging to deep square, a difficult chance. He composes himself in the obvious way, with a six over long-on, and that’s his fifty off 23 balls. WG Grace, who played his cricket in these parts, would be quite astonished.
And here’s a reassuring sight: an email from John Starbuck. “Gareth Southgate [3rd over] would probably not be up for running the England cricket team,” he argues. “The effective principles he employs in football don’t really apply e.g. stuffing your side with Yorkshiremen no longer works.”
6th over: England 73-0 (Roy 45, Buttler 27) Correction: Roy is not being upstaged after all. Pandya comes on, and as if he’s not embarrassed already after that midfield, he goes for four-four-six, all of them to pull shots. And then another six! A massive swing, dropped over the boundary by the man at long-on, as Richie Benaud would have said. That makes 22 off the over, and Buttler can hardly get a look-in. “It has been,” says Nasser Hussain, “England’s second-best powerplay ever.”
5th over: England 51-0 (Roy 24, Buttler 26) After bowling the best over of the day, for only six, Chahar is taken off. On comes Siddarth Kaul, in a John McEnroe headband. He has an appeal for LBW, but then Roy bludgeons him for six too. That brings up the fifty off only 27 balls. Odd as it may sound, the Indians may be bowling too fast, letting the ball come onto the bat on a springy surface.
4th over: England 43-0 (Roy 17, Buttler 26) Roy is England’s dasher-in-chief, yet in the first 15 minutes of this game, Buttler reduced him to a spectator. He gets his chance now, thumps a straight drive for four, picks up four more from a bad misfield by Hardik Pandya at mid-off, and rubs it in with the first six, wellied over the miscreant’s head. Don’t read too much into the score – the boundaries are 60m in all directions, so this could be a very high-scoring match.
3rd over: England 29-0 (Roy 3, Buttler 26) Chahar continues, with Kohli showing admirable faith. He goes for another four as Buttler wallops him over midwicket, but fights back with an outswinger that beats the bat, which shows character. Gareth Southgate would approve.
2nd over: England 23-0 (Roy 2, Buttler 21) Umesh Yadav brings more experience, but he too suffers as Buttler goes deep in the crease to play a lofted straight drive, then rocks back to pull. That makes five fours already: he is in the form of his life.
1st over: England 13-0 (Roy 1, Buttler 12) Kohli, perhaps anxious to show that he is his usual bold self, hands the new ball to the new boy, Deepak Chahar. Jason Roy takes a single off the pads and Jos Buttler, after one sighter, shimmies down the track and off-drives for four. That ball was 87mph! Next, Buttler stays put and chips over mid-on for another four. The slip vanishes, after four deliveries, and the ball needs changing. Kohli packs the off-side ring, so Buttler swipes to leg, only half-hits it, but picks up four more. Welcome to international cricket, Deepak.
There are fireworks going off.“As if it’s not hot enough!” says David Lloyd, with true Englishness.
England bring back Ben Stokes at the first opportunity, and Joe Root is the man to make way. So still no Moeen, and Stokes, if he bowls at all, will be the fourth seamer. with the bat, he may have to play Root’s role, as the straight man in a starry line-up – Bill Wyman in the Stones, basically.
India leave out Kuldeep, of all people – the man who won them the first match. They say it’s because of the dimensions of the ground at Bristol, but it feels unduly defensive to swap a mystery spinner for a medium-pacer, Siddarth Kaul. As he brings out the drinks on this baking hot day, Kuldeep will be able to compare notes on the capriciousness of fate with Dawid Malan. Bhuvneshwar Kumar is injured, so his place goes to Deepak Chahar, who has been taking wickets for fun in India’s series-winning A team.
Kohli calls heads, heads it is, and he feels like chasing.
Hello everyone and welcome to the third and final Twenty20 game between England and India. On the one hand, it’s a big moment – the decider, the occasion of the season so far, a clash of the white-ball titans. On the other hand, it’s the afternoon after the afternoon before.
All England is still in a stupor, merrily suffering from the virus known as WorldCupsemifinalitis, which only strikes once in a generation. Millions have a crush on Gareth Southgate, who seems to be the only British leader trying to combine the values of the young (education, empathy, cuddliness, irony, multiculturalism) with those of their grandparents (honesty, decency, modesty, practicality, keeping tha’s feet on t’ground). Nobody, but nobody, is talking about Paul Farbrace. Perhaps it would help if he started wearing spats.
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