Brief Scores: India 381/6 in 50 overs (Yuvraj Singh 150(127), MS Dhoni 134(122); Chris Woakes 4/60, Liam Plunkett 2/91) win against England 365/8 in 50 overs (Eoin Morgan 102(81), Jason Roy 82(73); R Ashwin 3/65, Bumrah 2/81) by 15 runs

Chris Woakes puts India in an unfamiliar position

Rahul departed in the 3rd over after edging an away-seaming delivery to Ben Stokes at second slip. Virat Kohli arrived at the crease and he caressed the ball straight down the ground, twice in three deliveries, and life was back to normal. But, in a day of upsets which started with the exit of Novak Djokovic from the Australian Open at the hands of probably the only tennis player Uzbekistan has produced, Kohli misjudged the length of a full delivery and edged it to the slips and ended with a single-digit score in the first innings after 10 months.

Dhawan, who can now boast of staying at the crease longer than Kohli, followed soon after as he dragged another delivery onto his stumps. India found themselves in what was perhaps the most uncomfortable position in this whole tour at 25/3 when Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni paired up in the middle in the fifth over.

"It will be like the old days playing with him (Dhoni) when we had started,” Yuvraj had said earlier this month. Of course, he was going to act on it as well, much to England’s peril.

A few things were unlike how it was in the past, though. Dhoni’s flowing mane has been replaced by short greys. By the end of the innings, his 35-year-old thumb nearly gave away after being used a bit too much for hitting sixes, and a physio had to be called on to the pitch. Yuvraj, on the other hand, had a bit more ‘presence’ at the wicket. There were a very few quick singles – even if Dhoni could, Yuvi could not.

Dhoni, at the other end, was a bit more skeptical about taking a gung-ho approach. However, by the time he was done, a spider-cam was in pieces, few of the balls went missing, and India were on their way to a mammoth total.

Dhoni and Yuvraj put on a partnership of 256 runs – the highest for the fourth wicket against England in the ODIs. Yuvraj nicked one to the keeper in the 43rd over after scoring 150, while Dhoni was caught in the deep while trying to muscle a full toss over the deep square leg. England, finally, managed to get a bouncer right in the match, but it arrived in the final delivery of the innings, and India had already posted 381 runs on the board.

The experts said that England were 30 runs short in the first ODI, so in the 2nd ODI they were trusted with the task of finding those runs. Despite the early departure of Alex Hales, they did get off to a better start than India. Virat Kohli had thrown the new ball to Jasprit Bumrah in this match and held back Hardik Pandya.

Both Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar did manage to extract some early swing and seam movements under the lights, but apart from the one delivery which dismissed Hales, the English batsmen looked fairly comfortable at the crease. In fact, they peppered the off-side boundary with drives and cuts, and the Barabati stadium began to lose its voice.

Captain Morgan's brilliance not enough

Pankaj Patnaik, the chief pitch curator at the Barabati Stadium, had warned about heavy dew affecting the match in the build up. With India relying heavily on their spinners, bowling second seemed like a daunting task. However, Ashwin and Jadeja made an immediate impact on the game as soon as Kohli threw the ball towards them.

From 170/2, England were down to 206/5 and were once again staring down the barrel.

Eoin Morgan and Moeen Ali kept England in the game with a crafty partnership. The Indian pacers looked as ineffective as the England pacers, and once Jadeja and Ashwin completed their quota of overs, Kohli was left hoping he had another spinner in the team. Add to that, Jadeja dropped a catch of Ali in the 42nd over, and England were left with a target of 100 runs in the last 8 overs.