1 month ago
25
Key events Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature
5th over: England 35-0 (Salt 6, Duckett 27) Shami has an LBW shout against Salt, probably going down, and then bowls a wild delivery to Duckett, a wide way down the leg side. KL Rahul does well to get a hand to it and stop it turning into five wides. As Shami switches back to the off side, Duckett cuts for four.
4th over: England 28-0 (Salt 6, Duckett 22) Rana continues, tall and military, though not medium. Duckett pulls him for four more, hitting it beautifully. Phil Salt is just a passenger in Duckett’s Porsche.
3rd over: England 23-0 (Salt 5, Duckett 18) If you’re going to flash, flash hard. Duckett cuts Shami with venom and collects four more as Chakaravarthy manages a dive but not a clean pick-up. Shami bounces back with three dots in a row as the commentators spot some uneven bounce, which may explain why Jos Buttler opted to bat first. Duckett finishes the over with a clip to long leg for four more. That’s five fours so far, and only three singles.
2nd over: England 15-0 (Salt 5, Duckett 10) Harshit Rana, so impressive the other day, starts with a loosener. It’s short of a length and Duckett finds the middle of the bat with a crunching pull. Then Duckett gets some more luck as he under-edges an attempted cut and picks up a jammy four to long stop.
1st over: England 6-0 (Salt 5, Duckett 1) Shami finds some swing right away. Phil Salt copes with it, tucking the first ball away for a single. Ben Duckett is less assured, edging the second but getting away with it as there’s no second slip. The first big shot comes from Salt, a slash outside off that connects with a whole lot of thin air – but then he tries again and gets it right, lifting the last ball over the ring.
The players are out there in the blazing sunshine and Mohammed Shami has the ball.
An email! “Mo Mentum,” says Andrew Benton. “Indeed, once Brendon McCullum has fired things up, it’s essential that Maureen Mentum pops in periodically to keep things moving in the right direction. Hope she’s now a member of the support staff. “ Ha.
Teams: India
At the toss, there was one moment that was greeted by a huge cheer. That was when Rohit Sharma mentioned that Yashasvi Jaiswal – possibly the best young player in the world – was being left out. The crowd don’t have anything against Jaiswal: it’s just that his replacement is Virat Kohli. Rohit announced one other change, with Kuldeep Yadav giving way to Varun Chakaravarthy, who makes his ODI debut. In the T20 series, he tied England up in knots.
India 1 Rohit (capt), 2 Gill, 3 Kohli, 4 Iyer, 5 Rahul (wkt), 6 Pandya, 7 Axar, 8 Jadeja, 9 Chakaravarthy, 10 Rana, 11 Shami.
Teams: England
Three changes for this struggling England side: Jacob Bethell has a hamstring injury, and Tom Banton (remember him?) is flying out to join the squad. Bethell’s place goes not to Rehan Ahmed, the other slow-bowling all-rounder, but to Jamie Overton. Mark Wood and Gus Atkinson also come in as Jofra Archer and Brydon Carse are rested. So England, whose policy of playing three fast bowlers hasn’t been a great success, now have four. That’s Brendon McCullum for you.
England 1 Salt (wkt), 2 Duckett, 3 Root, 4 Brook, 5 Buttler (capt), 6 Livingstone, 7 Overton, 8 Atkinson, 9 Rashid, 10 Wood, 11 Mahmood.
England win toss and bat
Jos Buttler wins the toss and, unusually, wants to bat first. “It looks,” says Rohit Sharma, “like a typical Indian pitch.”
Preamble
Morning everyone and welcome to the second game in the ODI series. This is it, the crunch. If England lose again, another series will be gone. If they win, it’ll be 1-1 and they may even go into the third and final game with a modicum of momentum.
The good news is that this match is taking place at Cuttack, which is traditionally full of runs. The bad news is that India lose only one game in four here: last time England were in town, eight years ago, they made 366 and still lost. The neither good nor bad news is that Cuttack hasn’t hosted an ODI for five years, so it may have changed its ways.
India, as usual, are hot favourites. They are so good at white-ball cricket that they can even get away with recalling their big names. Today, Virat Kohli is due back after missing the first ODI with a bad knee. It’s the kind of thing that can happen when you’re 36 and you’ve got 550 international games on the clock.
The first ball is due to be bowled at 1.30pm in Cuttack, which is 8am in London. I’ll be back about 25 minutes before that with the toss, the teams and possibly some toast.
