England 325-4 (50 overs) India 316-9
Well, well, well. Ashley Giles has already achieved something Andy Flower could not: an ODI win in the world champions’ back yard. Ian Bell was right. The warm up matches really were meaningless.
England’s success was built on the one really strong aspect of our side: the top order batting. Alastair Cook continues to play like superman, whilst Ian Bell continues to bat more like Mahela Jayawardene than Mahela Jayawardene currently does. Their opening stand of 158 was serene.
England’s total of 325-4 was useful but far from unassailable. The pitch was flatter than the flattest pancake on shrove Tuesday. We probably should have scored more. The fourth fifty of the innings, when Pietersen and Morgan were at the crease, were by far our slowest. We got introspective when we should have been in T20 slog mode; indeed, it took a last gasp cameo from Samit Patel, and a few perfectly executed hockey shots from Kieswetter, to get us over 300.
India’s chase began ominously well. Rahane and Gambhir took advantage of some shoddy bowling from Dernbach (that’s from the deliveries that weren’t too wide to hit) and at one point it looked like 500 wouldn’t have been enough.
However, man of the match James Tredwell, who took an admirable 4-44, swung the game towards England. Some of India’s dismissals were soft – but let’s not underestimate the bowler Kent’s premier off-spinner has become.
Tredwell doesn’t exactly look like an athlete. To be honest, he doesn’t look like he belongs in the public eye at all. His demeanour is too unassuming; he resembles a socially awkward accountant who still lives with his Mum.
However, appearances can be deceptive. Gareth Batty looked like the stereotypical English off-spinner: nice action, combative personality, confidence coming out of his ears. But how often did he do the business for England? Not very often. Tredwell is the opposite. He looks like your average club cricketer, but he’s got all the skills.
So England march on. India will be sick of the sight of us. MS Dhoni was certainly not amused during the post match presentations.
But why the sad face MS? If you look at the official world rankings, England are the number one team in the world. That’s right. On paper our ODI team is better than our test team.
We know that’s misleading; you know that’s misleading; but it happens to be the truth. Maybe we shouldn’t consider ourselves to be perennial underdogs anymore.
James Morgan
I think Ashley Giles is planning this great Hollywood story where the English ODI team is underdogging their way to the world cup. He can’t afford them not being the underdog in this scenario. They don’t handle being winners well.
[sits back and waits for ‘underdogging’ jokes]