Super Sixes SRL | IND vs ENG Evaluation Chart - Jordan, Rashid hold nerve as England edge India

ByAnirudh Suresh, SportsCafe Editor

04/24/2020

After threatening to clinch defeat from the jaws of victory, Adil Rashid and Chris Jordan held their nerve with the bat as England won their second game of the night, beating India by two wickets. Incidentally, with the ball, too, it was Jordan who wreaked havoc, ending with figures of 3/35.

Match Review

After being put in to bat, team India got off to the worst start imaginable, losing both Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli within the first 2 overs, before also losing Shreyas Iyer before the commencement of the powerplay. Chris Jordan was the wrecker in chief, removing both Kohli and Rohit, and wickets at regular intervals meant that the Indians never got going at any point. However, a brisk 67-run stand between Rahul and Pandya, both of who ended up scoring fitties, ensured that Kohli’s men crawled to a fighting total of 164.

In response, wickets were hard to come by for the Indian pacers, who let England race off to 85/1 in no time, but then miserly spells from the spin duo of Ravindra Jadeja and Yuzvendra Chahal pulled the Men in Blue right back into the game, with England being reduced 119/4 at one stage. However, a masterful, calculated knock from Jason Roy coupled with some lusty blows from the bat of Ben Stokes took England close to the finish line and then, bowlers Chris Jordan and Adil Rashid showed nerves of steel to guide Morgan’s men home.

Turning Point

Shardul Thakur’s awry 16th over, where he ended up conceding 15 runs, turned out to be the turning point, with England shifting gears from thereon. Having scored just 50 runs in the preceding 7 overs, the pressure was well and truly on England with the asking rate close to 12, but sixes off the bat of Roy and Morgan in Thakur’s over meant that the Three Lions got the cushion they needed to get home safe.

Highs and Lows

Very rarely do we come across ball dominating the bat with the new ball in T20 cricket, but today, Chris Jordan was out there to prove every single one of us wrong. The right-armer accounted for the wickets of both Rohit Sharma and Virat Kolhi in BACK-TO-BACK deliveries and delivered a sucker punch to the Indians in just the second over of the game, something that they never recovered from till the very end.

Inconsistency is not something you associate with Kohli, but the Indian skipper failed for the second time in a row in this Super Sixes SRL to leave the Indian fans utterly disappointed. He followed up his 13 against Australia with a golden duck today and his exit pretty much gave England the confidence that they can steamroll over the Indian side without really breaking a sweat - which they did.

Rating Charts

Powerplay exploitation: - India 3/10 and England 7/10

Losing three wickets within the powerplay in a T20 game is an unforgivable crime in itself, let alone two of those three being the wickets of Rohit and Kohli. Rohit starting the innings off with two fours in the first three balls turned out to be a false klaxon as barring the first over, team India managed to score just 29 runs in the first six overs for the loss of three wickets. It was a soulless, jaded display that ended up setting the wrong tone for the rest of the innings.

While 165 is not a daunting total to chase by any means, you still need your top order to get the juices flowing and despite losing Buttler early, the duo of Bairstow and Roy kept the Indian bowlers at bay with some smart batting. ‘One boundary per over’ was the pair’s mantra as they exactly hit 6 boundaries in the powerplay to steer the side to 44/1 at the end of the sixth over.

Middle overs manoeuvring: India 8/10 and England 7/10

Losing your head and falling like a pack of cards after suffering a top-order collapse is a pretty common sighting in T20 cricket but the trio of Rahul, Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya showed commendable maturity to give their side every chance to set a defendable target. While the Pandya-Rahul partnership will undoubtedly be the one that will get all the attention, Pant’s 14 was valuable, too, for it arrested the collapse and made England rethink their tactics. Accumulating 73/1 in the middle after being reduced to 39/3 is pretty impressive, to be honest.

The thing with chasing a total like 165 is that you’re always in the game even if you have a stinky phase in the middle and the fine job that was done by the English bowlers ended up helping the batsmen out in the end. Barring Roy, who was almost invincible on the day, the rest of the pack, unsurprisingly, struggled against Jadeja and Chahal, who combined for figures of 7-0-55-1. The run rate, that was 9 an over during the half-way mark, climbed up to 10.6 by the end of the 15th, indicating the struggles of the batsmen in caressing the spinners around.

Death Bowling: England 5/10 and India 7/10

England could have very well restricted India below 160, especially after removing the well-set Rahul in the 17th over, but some loose bowling at the end meant that Pandya teed off, thrusting the home side’s total close to 165. The last three overs accounted for 35 runs and Jordan’s last over alone cost 14 runs, kind of undoing all the hard work that they’d done in the first half of the Indian innings.

So, here’s the thing - the Indian bowlers did a pretty amazing job at the death. However, does it count for anything at all, given they ended up losing the match anyway? When the equation is 53 off the last 5 overs with 7 wickets in hand, you’ll favour the batting side 9/10 times, but the Indian bowling unit almost pulled off an impossible heist. Eventually, picking five more wickets and taking the game to the last over wasn’t enough as England got home by a whisker, thanks to Jason Roy's brilliance.

Match Frenzy O Meter - Great

The match turned out to be the perfect advertisement for T20 cricket, as it ended up having everything - be it big hitting or unexpected collapses or constant shifts in momentum. That it went to the very last ball was a testament to how close it was, despite England seemingly dominating the first half of the encounter. Worth every penny.