India 8 for 166 (Tilak 72*, Washington 26, Carse 3-29) bits uk 165 for 9 by 2 wickets (Buttler 45, Carse 31, Axar 2-32, Varun 2-38)
same but same but different
Arshdeep Singh’s first wicket. check. This time, the security guard ran across Phil Salt’s body and took the reward with the two of them.
First ball wicket with spin. check. This time to homeboy Washington Sundar, who replaced the injured Nitish Kumar Reddy.
Wicket of Varun Chakravarthy. check. Harry Brook was bowled through the gate when he faced Varun for the first time.
But Britain refused to be fooled. They continued to bat despite the loss of wickets. Buttler scored 45 runs in the 12th over.
Smith and Carse Boost England
Pace meets fire
Archer and Mark Wood tear up the ball under the night sky. Wood again delivered a quick delivery to trap Abhishek, but not before the opener brought down Archer by carving him up for three boundaries on first over. Varma gave him a 1-2: a step back, cutting four and sweeping six down the pitch. Meanwhile, Archer’s pace accounted for the wicket of Sanju Samson.
England dug in
England did not back down and continued to test the middle of the pitch. They went for a run but Carse got the wickets of Suryakumar Yadav and Dhruv Jurel by that length. Jamie Overton took Hardik Pandya’s gloves with a corker first ball as India lost three wickets for 21 runs in four overs and slipped to 78 for 5 at 9.1.
Rashid drops Washington
Adil Rashid built up the pressure on India by bowing beautifully in the middle overs as some grip was available to him. Four runs came off 11 balls for the stand. Then a flying guard for five wides brought Indian relief. However, Wood looked to have produced a wicket again, but Rashid dropped a sitter in mid-off. Six free hits later, with no slave out, and two glorious back-foot aerial punches led to a solid length clearing mid-off. Now 53 people have asked for 7.
uk buy way back
Carse again made a beauty to hit Washington up the middle. India still had one more notifier before they were in the tail. Buttler bought that wicket by introducing spin from Liam Livingstone. Axar holed out to deep midwicket.
Tilak dominates.
Buttler went home to give Archer the advantage, but Tilak opened the game. The flat square for the subsequent light stunned him, although it did not amuse Ager Archer, who had seen Tilak do so previously. More desperation followed when Arshdeep toe guided for a boundary, but Archer was distracted by his back-up and did not strike the stumps anyway.
Buttler gambled again with Rashid. Tilak farmed the strike early and gave Arshdeep a one-off. Like Axar, Arshdeep also drilled the hole with a hard, deep square leg.
Carse again tightened up to leave 13 off 13 in the last two overs and Buttler gambled again. Tilak took the first four balls back. Just three things. Now you can’t blame sub-orders for lack of consistency. Even Ravi Bishnoi faltered at Livingstone, but this time he flew to third with a short edge.
Tilak finished it off with a Searing Cover Driven Four for four balls.
Sidharth Monga is a senior writer at Espncricinfo
