Express News Service
India got off their tour of England in style, coinciding with the tense last match of the group stage in the football World Cup in Russia. Curiously, England were playing their last match at Moscow’s Spartak Stadium just as their in-form cricket side was getting walloped by India at the Old Trafford. England, who were beaten by India by eight wickets in the first of the three-match Twenty-20 series, quickly put the defeat behind to celebrate their football team’s victory over Colombia 4-3 in a penalty shootout.
Cricket pulled away a lot of Indian spectators from the World Cup before returning to it in time to watch the pulsating tie-break. One could not have asked for so much excitement on one afternoon, rather one night. The exit of former champions Germany, Argentina and Spain and reigning Euro 2016 champions Portugal before the quarterfinal stage was felt more because it took away superstars Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Manuel Neuer and Tony Kroos with them.
Four former champions Uruguay, Brazil, England and France are still in hunt and Neymar, Luis Saurez, Kylian Mbappe, Paul Pogba and Harry Kane can play a big role in the remaining games. In the round of 16, the competition got a lot tighter and three of the eight games needed a penalty shootout. Russia, Croatia, besides England, held their nerve to edge ahead. The quarterfinal matches is set to be much tougher. In cricket, India’s two easy wins in Ireland were not taken too seriously and in their first match in England, the hosts looked like posing serious problems after they got off to a flier.
Their march was checked in the middle overs by the fast rising left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav. Yadav literally finished the match in one over by taking three wickets and going on to become the first left-arm wrist spinner to take five wickets in Twenty20 Internationals. In the process, Mahendra Singh Dhoni became the stumper with most victims in shortest format. Yadav’s three victims were England’s best batsmen. He first enticed skipper Eoin Morgan to go for a slog and then had Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root stumped with unreadable deliveries.
For a change his spin partner Yuzvendra Chahal and the reliable newball bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar had nothing to show in the wickets column. But both Chahal and Bhuvneshwar know what it feels like taking five wickets, the former incidentally picked up six wickets against England when they were in India last year and Bhuvneshwar had a five-wicket haul in South Africa four months ago. But it was not all about Yadav. A target of 160 at times can be tricky, but Lokesh Rahul made sure England do not entertain any fancy ideas by stroking his second T20 ton, Rohit Sharma being the other Indian with two centuries in the format. Ideally, in this case, the Man of the Match award should have been shared between Yadav and Rahul, but the adjudicators thought a five-for merited it more.
An outstanding bowling performance has to get precedence even over a knock like Rahul’s. Not only the crowds made it look like the Indians are playing at home but also the pitch on which Yadav merrily tossed his googlies to bamboozle the Englishmen. Only Jos Buttler showed some resistance, having faced him in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Rahul knows what it means to get big runs when big hitters like Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina are there to grab the No 3 position.
When everyone is looking expecting Kohli to promote himself and open the innings as the best batsman in the team — like Sachin Tendulkar did — he like a good captain, promoted Rahul instead. Kohli must have been the happiest man to see Rahul bat like a champion. The beauty of Rahul’s knock was that he did not attempt outrageous strokes, he was bold in playing cricketing shots. Right now, the Englishmen are more worried about Yadav-Chahal than the might of Indian batting. It is not easy to find wrist spinners, more so left-arm, and England can only think of a spinbowling machine as an answer to Yadav and sooth their batsmen’s nerves before their second game at Cardiff on Friday. (The writer is a veteran commentator and the views expressed are personal. He can be reached at sveturi@gmail.com)
