ICC World Cup 2019: Match 38, England vs India – Who Said What

England have defeated India to keep their hopes alive of winning the World Cup in Birmingham. They batted the opposition effectively out of the game thanks to a brilliant partnership from Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow. Roy’s return has really infused life into their batting and it was visible from the outset. The latter scored a century and the 160-run partnership in 22 overs batting first eventually made the difference in the game.

Chasing 338, India got off to an extremely slow start scoring 28 runs off the first 10 overs. Rohit Sharma struggled early on even as KL Rahul‘s woes in the tournament continued. Virat Kohli came out and though the run-scoring was slow, the duo recovered it really well by the 25th over. Just when the partnership looked threatening for England, Liam Plunkett broke it by removing key Virat Kohli’s wicket.

Rohit Sharma continued playing his shots even then and got to his 25th century. But just when he was about to unleash himself, Chris Woakes got him. Hardik Pandya and Rishabh Pant tried their best to keep India on track but they were left a little too much to do in the end. Even MS Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav couldn’t do much in the last five overs but their intent was questioned by many as India fell short of the target by 31 runs.

Stokes, Roy and Bairstow shine for England

Earlier in the day, England were brilliant with the bat and at one stage, looked like they will be posting more than 360 runs on the board. Jason Roy and Bairstow played a blinder of knocks to keep India on the tenterhooks. The things slowed down at the halfway stage of the innings with a couple of wickets falling quickly.

But Ben Stokes didn’t deter and played a superb knock of 79 runs off 54 deliveries. His strokes were outrageous strokes, to say the least and smartly targetted the short boundary. England added 92 runs off the last 10 overs to finish on 337 runs for the loss of seven wickets and even though Mohammed Shami ended with a five-wicket haul, he leaked a little too many in the death overs.

Man of the Match, Jonny Bairstow said:

It was important to set a platform and assess the conditions early after winning the toss. It’s been frustrating for the guys as we’ve played well but the results have not gone in our favour. We can improve things going forward against New Zealand.

I was reacting to each ball. VVS definitely helped me with his knowledge against spin (while playing for Sunrisers). They bowled well upfront as they got few edges but we capitalised later. We have three must win games in the next two weeks but we need to focus on the next game that we play against New Zealand.

England skipper, Eoin Morgan said:

I thought we had a perfect start. Winning the toss and batting first wasn’t an easy decision but it turned out to be a very good decision. I wasn’t confident about it in the morning but it worked out really well for us.

We played extremely well, Jason Roy coming back in and Jonny’s hundred was pleasing to watch. Partnerships throughout took us to a really formidable total. From overs 10-20 we got about 90-95 runs which is quite substantial.

It lays a huge platform and the two main threats – the spinners of India were taken on. Throughout the first innings, the constant feedback was that it was getting difficult to bat on with the ball gripping.

Hopefully this is the brand of cricket that we want to play and it has taken off. The slower balls were gripping and were taking off the deck, so we weren’t really worried with that in the back of my head. (On how India played at the death) It didn’t really bother me. I was really happy with India’s approach sitting back. But our bowlers were superb.

Liam (Plunkett) has been outstanding for us for the last four years, especially in the middle overs where it is really difficult to take wickets. There is absolutely no easy game in this tournament, as Pakistan’s game against Afghanistan showed yesterday. Every game in this World Cup has been extremely tough for everybody and it will go on like that.

India skipper, Virat Kohli said:

Every team has lost a game or two here or there, you just have to accept that the opposition played a better game on the day, They were just more clinical in terms of their execution of their plans. We are still playing good cricket, and the morale is still the same in the dressing room. We just have to brush this aside as professional cricketers, learn from it and move forward. The toss was vital, especially looking at the boundaries that are this short.

Bizarre that it just falls in place with the boundary limitations and with a flat pitch such as this. It’s crazy that things fall in place like that randomly. It’s the first time we are experiencing this. The toss wasn’t a massive factor, but we weren’t clinical with the bat I suppose because the wicket was flat.

We should have accelerated and gotten closer, but they bowled superbly. If batsmen are able to reverse sweep, sweep you for a six on a 59-meter boundary you can’t do much as a spinner. They had to be more smart with their lines as it was difficult to contain runs with one short boundary.

I thought they were going towards 360 at one stage, so we did well to pull things back. 10-15 lesser would’ve been better, Ben played a superb knock and we were happy to restrict them to 330. If we were clinical with the bat, if the dismissals didn’t happen at that time then the result could have been different.

We had a decent chance when they (Pant and Pandya) were in there to strike a few and get closer to the target and trigger panic in their dressing room. We kept losing wickets and that doesn’t help in a big chase, but credit goes to England in the end.

It’s up to discussions with the two guys who were in there (if Dhoni and Jadhav lacked intent in the end). I think MS was trying really hard to get the boundary but it wasn’t coming off. They bowled in good areas and the ball was stopping, hence it was difficult to bat towards the end. We have to sit and assess and improve on things in the next game.