London: Yuzvendra Chahal scalped four big wickets in the middle overs to lead another brilliant bowling show for India as England were bowled out for 246 in 49 overs in the second ODI at the Lord’s on Thursday.
Apart from Chahal’s 4-47, which are the best bowling figures by an Indian bowler in ODIs at the Lord’s, Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya picked two wickets each while Mohammed Shami, Prasidh Krishna took a wicket apiece. It was a day where India’s bowlers struck at regular intervals, pushing England on the backfoot to deliver a strong performance with the ball.
Electing to bowl first, Shami got the ball to move both ways and beat the outer edges of Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow consistently. Roy was lucky to survive a thick inner edge while Bairstow had a thickish outer edge going wide of the first slip just after the second slip fielder was removed.
After getting a life at 23 and seeing out testing spells from Shami and Bumrah, Roy flicked in the air and gave an easy catch to a deep backward square leg off Hardik Pandya. Bairstow opened up with boundaries through the inside-out loft off Chahal and pulling Krishna twice through the leg-side.
But Chahal broke promising second-wicket stand as Bairstow got down for the slog-sweep, but missed the ball and was castled. Three overs later, Chahal had another huge scalp when Joe Root was trapped lbw on an attempted sweep, with the batter burning a review for England.
England fell into more trouble when Shami got one to come in and clean-bowled captain Jos Buttler, who was looking to flick across the line. Ben Stokes took the attack to Chahal with four consecutive reverse sweeps, two of them fetching him boundaries through cover-point and backward point.
But the leg-spinner had the last laugh as Stokes went for a reverse-sweep again, but couldn’t connect with it as the ball turned away to hit his back-pad. The left-handed batter went for a review but replays showed the ball hitting the top of the middle-stump, which meant England exhausted their reviews even before reaching halfway stage of the innings.
Liam Livingstone and Moeen Ali tried to steer England’s ship with a 46-run stand off 45 balls for the sixth wicket, keeping the scoreboard ticking and hitting boundaries in between. Livingstone smacked Pandya for a pulled six over backward square leg and took four more with another pull through mid-wicket. But Pandya had the last laugh as Livingstone pulled straight to deep square leg.
Ali then joined forces with Willey for doing the repair job for England, starting off with strike rotation before the duo took a six each over deep backward square leg and fine leg off Krishna’s seventh over. Despite Chahal, Shami and Bumrah coming on, Ali and Willey, dropped by Krishna off Pandya, continued to find boundaries with ease.
The 62-run stand was brought to an end by Chahal, who bowled slow and wide to Ali and had the left-hander caught on a slog-sweep to deep mid-wicket. Willey would pull Bumrah for a six over deep backward square-leg before holing out to a juggling long-on off a slower ball. Krishna and Bumrah took out the last two wickets to keep England four runs below 250.
Brief scores: England 246 in 49 overs (Moeen Ali 47, David Willey 41; Yuzvendra Chahal 4-47, Hardik Pandya 2-28) against India
–IANS
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