England's Winter of Cricket 2020/21

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Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:Wake up to hear Swann doing an Aussie impression. Can this be over in two days again?

Is that what it was? Couldn't fool me...

p.s. it was a 'nowhere in particular' accent.

That is an incredible shot by Pant!

Pant is just brilliant!

128 with five overs left. England will do well to keep India below 180.

So Sam got a wicket...but went for 16. Seems England might be chasing a few more this time unless their death bowling is better than it was on Tuesday.

Duty281 wrote:128 with five overs left. England will do well to keep India below 180.

Might be closer to 200 the way these two are going . Sixty one off the last five and they don't look like slowing down...

Yes Jof!

England needed that.

Oh good ball from Archer ...Pant gone. Needed that.

Pandya can hit though : not a bad fellow to have coming in at seven...

there is no room for out of form or ageing stars
Iyer, Ishan and Surya will keep every one on their toes

Oh dear...Jordan not living up to his reputation as a death bowler tonight. Eighteen off that over rather undoes Archer's good work from the previous one.

Shreyas is shredding the bowling tonight. They are looking good for over 190 now...

Oh but that was excellent from Mark Wood Five good balls and capped by a great catch by Ben Stokes !

Seven balls left...170/6 and a new batsman in. Big difference an over can make...

Fantastic from Mark Wood again. He's turned into a really fantastic one day bowler.

Ooftt. I think he touched the boundary before gathering the ball but his foot comes up just (and I mean just) before it hits his hands.

Yeah, not a good day for Jordan, but Archer and Wood again spectacular.

Third-umpire again desperate to find an excuse to disallow a perfectly legitimate catch...none found. This has been a good late effort from England.

Right call IMO. Another incredibly tight one though.

Inspite of two 3rd umpiring decisions going against
Ind managed to post a par total

186 to win for England then.

I reckon that's around par on a good batting wicket with the ball skidding on more in the second innings.

Early wickets will make 186 a big score to reach though. Well poised.

185/8. Yadav and Pant brilliant for some part, but unable to stay on long enough to make it a mammoth score.

Reckon England are favourites, especially with the dew around, but it'll be a proper test.

Archer backing that over up now ...Shreyas gone ...and Sundar as well . Despite a lot of third umpire viewing angles in apparent hopes of proving Rashid's heel might have touched the advertising board
Think that was a waste of time to be honest...pretty clear he was OK.

Four wickets for Archer and these last couple of overs have kept them to ...185. The two fast men did a very good job.

Decent total to chase , for a change. Much better effort from India, and England will be tested this time

Good stuff from Archer and Wood, Stokes bowled alright too. Rashid a rare off day, and Jordan/Surran won't want to remember this one...

Think India are just on top here, a challenging chase

Roy ends the PowerPlay strongly with 16 runs off the last four balls. India did get Buttler early, but they dropped Malan, so it's advantage England for now.

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:An atrocious innings from Rahul comes to an end...probably a good thing for India

Malan's just done the Rahul for England there

This is really well poised.

The big conundrum for Kohli will be getting 8 overs from his spinners.

Advantage with India now. Time for the lower half of the top six to come to the fore.

Roy gone when set. Big big wicket in the situation.

Stokes comes in ahead of Morgan. I'd agree with that given 11 overs to come after this one and Morgan being the better at hitting from the off.

Two new batsman at the crease and a high RRR.

8 overs to go with the RRR basically 12.

England need that big over.

Excellent over for England from Washington Sundar's last. Bairstow firing after a stuttering start.

That's what England needed. 5 of the last 6 overs will be the seamers though and England haven't been picking their slower balls so far.

king_carlos wrote:8 overs to go with the RRR basically 12.

England need that big over.

Big over arrived. Sundar goes for 18 off his last. Handy.

And Stokes is looking to do the same to Charar's last...ball is getting pretty damp - tough for the spinners.

Ah Bairstow gone from the penultimate ball of spin.

Morgan at the crease.

This should go to the wire!

54 needed off the last five. If one, or both, of these two bats through England should win.

Just as they're getting on top , Bairstow gone ... India needed that partnership broken. But on the good side , Morgan comes in with time to have a quick look and then tee off...

Five overs to get 54. Significantly down on the twelve they needed a little while back. All pacers now.

Huge wicket to get Stokes at this stage. Two new batsman at the crease. Advantage swings to India again.

And Morgan next ball. That should be the game.

That's torn it...Stokes holes out off Thakur and not too much batting left to support Morgan now.
Hope Sam C is feeling good...

And Morgan goes too !

Game over , I think. Thakur was the one I thought would be the weak link but he's probably won the game for India

Oh dear, those two balls have likely made the decisive difference.

Who bats at 8 nowadays? Jordan? Yes.

Indian pacers have used the slower ball very well today. Wickets and dot balls.

You could say that once it got down around ten per over , England should have been a bit more selective with their big hitting. But to be fair it was the method that had got them back on top so hard to change tack.

39 off three would be almost "easy" if they had two proper bats still in. But very tall order for Sam and Chris...

A brilliant 4 overs for Pandya. He's bowled excellently today.

4 overs, 16 runs, two wickets from Pandya. Won the game for India that spell across the 20 overs from him, especially compared to how England's 4/5/6th bowlers bowled. Superb!

Pandya finished an excellent night's work with the wicket of Curran...pretty well seals the win for them.

Their back up bowlers have really stood up tonight. England are going to be about 12-15 short...comfortable margin for this stuff. Shows you don't have to bat second in these games...

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:4 overs, 16 runs, two wickets from Pandya. Won the game for India that spell across the 20 overs from him, especially compared to how England's 4/5/6th bowlers bowled. Superb!

That's the thing that sticks out there for me. England should be bowling better in the second half of the innings with that extra bowling option.

Think England will be a bit disappointed with this. Sort of expect the Indian spinners to be the danger men...but tonight it's been the pacers and their shrewd pace variations. No one really came to terms with them tonight.

Closer than expected...Archer hitting some big ones at the end but it is level at two games all...

Good bowling performance from India to seal the win, Pandya and Kumar especially. One more game to go.

Think I would put Archer up at 8, he can hit a good long ball!

Another note - over four hours for a T20? Ridiculous.

Some long handle from Jordan and Archer had Shardul a bit scrambled, but India just home in the end. Good game, and glad the series has a decider!

For a minute the final over was getting interesting with Archer's boundaries and a couple of wides.

India win batting first. They played well. Yadav and Iyer with the bat then Pant and Kumar with the ball were impressive.

England will be frustrated with their bowling in the second half of India's innings and their batting though. Far from their best performance.

The most engrossing game of the series so far even if a frustrating result for an England fan.

Ind won a game that had a lot of drama....where India were ahead of Eng all the time...except the lasts 2 overs of Bairstow / Stokes partnership where Eng seemed equal.

Ind buried the ghosts of batting first, overcame the dreaded dew that appeared for the first time in such amounts today, the nerves of Shardul in the end and the continued flawed & bewildering selection of KL Rahul.

The leggie Rahul showed more potential than predictable Chahl.
Next game Ind should play either Ishan or an additional seamer in place of KL......seamers still do well if the ball is wet...and both spinners come inot play when bowling first.
IPL has produced a problem of too much talent for India....and no one can take his place for granted

I guess having a final game shoot out is good for the series. But I think this has already shown England they are far from clear favourite for the Cup in these conditions. Batting is still good - even if it hasn't been exactly consistent in these games ; but there are some question marks about the bowling , I think.
Did think today they probably erred by bowling Rashid early and basically wasting Curran by only using him for one fairly late over. Not really playing to his strengths. If he's playing at all , I think he needs to have an over or two while it is swinging. Guess they are still experimenting.

Agree with all that alfie. I think Surran ideally needs the first and third over if he plays. A similar role to Bhuvneshwar up top just taking advantage of that tiny bit of movement you get for around 3 overs.

I will once again bear the ire of Goose by saying this but I think Malan could do with a score in the final game here and/or a good IPL to strut his stuff in these conditions. He's been outstanding for England on the quicker pitches he's played on until now.

I quite like Morgan in that finisher role despite picking out the fielder today but Stokes and Bairstow's domestic T20 success has come in the top order rather than the middle.

alfie wrote:I guess having a final game shoot out is good for the series. But I think this has already shown England they are far from clear favourite for the Cup in these conditions. Batting is still good - even if it hasn't been exactly consistent in these games ; but there are some question marks about the bowling , I think.
Did think today they probably erred by bowling Rashid early and basically wasting Curran by only using him for one fairly late over. Not really playing to his strengths. If he's playing at all , I think he needs to have an over or two while it is swinging. Guess they are still experimenting.

As I see it ...Eng's bowling has been excellent....it's their batting that's thin beyond Roy-the perpetual thorn in India's flesh...and Butler.
Their faster bowlers and the spinner has outbowled their indian counterparts.
Only in the seamers' slow bowling India has been more clever

Gooseberry wrote:

Worries about the lower order batting.... england do look to have a soft underbelly but its worth noting that Archer has never had to bat in all the t20is he's played, England very rarely get more than 6 down in this format. That's the value guys like Malan bring to the side. Their top 5 is adaptable enough to cope with early wickets going down, so they just don't need a root at 6 and can carry curran swinging for the fences approach at 7. There's been one occasion in the past year or so where the lower middle order was called on and found wanting (and that was a real experimental makeshift side), they can't pick a side around that rare eventuality.

Im just going to retire from having opinions

Indian squad for ODIs
India squad: Virat Kohli (Capt), Rohit Sharma (vc), Shikhar Dhawan, Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant (wk), KL Rahul (wk), Y Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Krunal Pandya, W Sundar, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Md. Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Shardul Thakur.

Prasidh Krishna is reportedly an express pacer ...saini , Ishan kishan, Ashwin , Deepak & Rahul Chahar and Umesh do not find room.......I assume Shami and Jadeja are still not fit

India has so much talent currently that, I believe
It can field 2 elevens in each format  with the possibility of both elevens making it top four of rankings

England win the toss (we've at least done well with them on this tour...) and bowl first.

England unchanged but India replace Rahul with Natajaran and push Kohli up to open.