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8 hours ago
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Key events
8th over: India 44-1 (Rohit 9, Kohli 0) So that was a textbook start from Gus Atkinson: 1-1-0-1. And hre comes Virat Kohli, greeted by a banner saying “I’ll buy you dinner Virat, if you don’t retire”. Not sure it will make all the difference.
WICKET! Gill c Duckett b Atkinson 31 (India 44-1)
The big one! A change of bowling, and a fine catch, do the trick. Gill sees a half-volley outside off. His eyes light up but his feet aren’t quite there and his drive is uppish. It heads straight for Duckett, who takes it very coolly, just in front of his right shoulder.
7th over: India 44-0 (Rohit 9, Gill 31) England need a spark, a great catch or a direct hit or a bold bit of captaincy. Brook keeps his faith in Archer, who keeps Gill honest with three dots and a single, helped by a fine stop in the covers from Duckett. Archer again bothers Rohit with a lifter as a pull turns into a leading edge, but it doesn’t fly upwards and England are still empty-handed.
6th over: India 42-0 (Rohit 9, Gill 30) This is now a one-man show. Saqib Mahmood persists with his full length, making it all too easy for Gill, who tucks him away for four, four and three. After making 11 off his first 17 balls, Gill has added 19 off the past five. He’s in a league of his own.
5th over: India 30-0 (Rohit 9, Gill 19) Good again from Jofra, who keeps Gill in the crease and reels off four dots. But the fifth ball is too full and Gill helps himself to an on-drive for four. The sixth is good enough to keep most batters quiet, but Gill’s eye is in now and he turns a length ball into a long hop, cutting it for four with princely timing. This could be another long afternoon for England.
4th over: India 22-0 (Rohit 9, Gill 11) Mahmood starts his over with a couple of dots. Gill, often so classical, responds by dancing down the track and blasting a drive over cover. Start Me Up!
Mahmood hits Gill’s pad and the umpire shakes his head. Brook opts to review, unwisely, as there was an inside edge that could be heard in London.
3rd over: India 17-0 (Rohit 9, Gill 6) Archer continues, pitching full, finding swing, troubling both these master batters. Then he goes short, rushing Rohit into a top edge, and the catch is dropped by Gus Atkinson at long leg. Archer has been so unlucky, in all formats, since he returned from the IPL.
2nd over: India 11-0 (Rohit 4, Gill 6) Another lesson from Tuesday might be: don’t stray onto Shubman’s pads. Saqib Mahmood gives him a straight half-volley and pays the price as Gill’s wrists do the rest. But Saqib too finds the edge of Gill’s bat as another controlled nick squirts away for a single. Rohit comes to the party with a languid push for three, well retrieved by Harry Brook, two inches from the Toblerone. Dinesh Karthik reckons it should have been given as a four, so bear it in mind if England win off the last ball.
1st over: India 3-0 (Rohit 1, Gill 1) Archer’s first ball is in the corridor of uncertainty and Rohit Sharma edges it, safely, for a single. That gives the strike to the alarmingly in-form Shubman Gill. Archer greets him with a wide – something England kept dishing up on Tuesday – but then he’s back on the money, swinging the ball and drawing a thick inside edge, then another outside edge. A pretty good start for England.
The players are out there and Jofra Archer has the ball. He’s having to do a lot of work these days.
The first email comes from an old friend. “At least,” says Brian Withington, “today’s match format denies any opportunity to play Tuchelball by parking the bus with ill-judged defensive substitutions mid-game, even in the most unlikely event of England’s other foreign coach being tempted to exhibit such craven behaviour.
”Unlike in Test cricket, you can’t even pack the boundary areas either and desperately try to buy a wicket with a barrage of short stuff. Just need to get the selection right up front, play well, be brave and demonstrate astute captaincy throughout. Easy game really.
”What could possibly go wrong?”
England have a problem – well, lots of them, but the most pressing one is at the top of the order. They have somehow turned Ben Duckett into Alastair Cook, making steady runs while his opening partners come and go.
Since Brendon McCullum took over the 50-over team in September 2024, Duckett has played 24 games and made about a thousand runs (993 at an average of 41). His partners in those games have done about half as well (510 at 21). Duckett has passed fifty eight times, the rest only three times. There have been five of them – Phil Salt, Jamie Smith, Zak Crawley, Rehan Ahmed and now Jacob Bethell – and only the first two have had a decent run, though Bethell may yet get one
Bethell was all at sea on Tuesday, trudging to 14 off 31 balls, and he does seem a strange choice, given that he’s a left-hander like Duckett. As Mike Atherton has just pointed out on Sky, England players seldom appear in 50-over cricket for their counties, so someone like Bethell is having to learn the ropes on the big stage. It will be impressive if he can make 40 today.
The sponsors’ mat that comes out for the toss was carrying an unexpected logo oday: the tongue that represents the Rolling Stones. “One of the iconic bands of the world,” said Ravi Shastri, sounding a little out of his comfort zone.
“No shit, Shastri,” muttered a cricket writer who also does music reviews.
Teams in brief: Dawson ditched, Rahul indisposed
England make two changes and tacitly admit that they got it wrong at Edgbaston by replacing a spinner with a seamer. In come Gus Atkinson and Saqib Mahmood; out go Josh Tongue and Liam Dawson, whose batting may be sorely missed.
For India, there’s just one change and it's enforced. KL Rahul, who is unwell, hands the wicketkeeping gloves to Ishan Kishan.
Toss: England win and bowl first
Shubman Gill calls wrong and Harry Brook opts to have a bowl on a ground where chasing tends to be the way to go. Gill says he would have bowled first too.
Preamble
Afternoon everyone, or is it still the morning after the night before? There’s only one way to cope with sporting heartbreak and that is to get back on the horse. You may wonder whether a bilateral ODI, quite likely to be forgotten by next week, can heal the wounds of a World Cup semi-final in which England’s German manager threw away a lead and became more English than the English. But maybe it can provide a distraction, and at least we know that today the England coach won’t be indefensibly defensive.
This is a game that has to be won, or the three-match series will be gone in three days flat. Harry Brook and Brendon McCullum, so successful in T20s (bar the odd World Cup semi-final), haven’t come close to mastering the 50-over game. On Tuesday at Edgbaston they made a big mistake, picking three spinners on a surface that was crying out for four seamers. Brook confirmed it by bowling his three seamers out and barely using Liam Dawson, who might have thought it was going to be his day after making his first international fifty.
It wasn’t all down to that misreading of the pitch. India’s old guns, led by the great Jasprit Bumrah, made far steelier foes than their young blades. God help England when Rohit, Virat and Rahul add some runs to their magisterial presence. But England have the blazing talent of Brook, and the quiet excellence of Joe Root, and surely their middle order can’t be quite that flaky again.
Play starts at 1pm and the forecast, I regret to report, is for yet more of this tedious sunshine.
