India finally lost a game at World Cup, to the host nation in Birmingham. Questions have been raised already for the approach of batters, especially in the first 10 and last five overs of the game.
England after winning the toss decided to bat first, on a ground that has a 59-meter boundary on one side. They had a lucky start to their innings, Bairstow added runs through inside edges, Jason Roy got a lifeline when India didn’t opt for DRS when Roy edged a ball to keeper Dhoni. After some hiccups in the first few overs, Roy and Bairstow launched their onslaught, especially against the Indian spinners. They both added 160 runs in 22 overs before Roy caught at long on boundary by the substitute Jadeja.
Bairstow brought up his maiden World Cup hundred in the 26th over. He got out soon after reaching the milestone, but Stokes who has already scored three fifties in the tournament added 70 runs with Root and made sure that England reaches a mammoth total of somewhere around 340. England ended their innings at 337 for 7 in 50 overs. Shami again India’s most successful bowler in terms of picking wickets, he took his maiden five-wicket haul in World Cup. Bumrah, as usual, was terrific throughout the innings and gave only 44 runs in his ten over when all other bowlers went for more than six an over.
India didn’t have a great start. First, they lost KL Rahul, and then they batted slowly in the first ten overs, adding only 27 runs when chasing a target of 300 plus. India’s best bet, Rohit and Kohli shifted gears in the next 18 overs as they added 119 runs in that period. Kohli reached yet another fifty but couldn’t convert into a big hundred.
Rohit then added 52 runs with the World Cup debutant Risbhab Pant for the third wicket, and in that process, Rohit brought up his third hundred of the current World Cup. However, like Bairstow, Rohit too lost his wicket after scoring an excellent hundred. The required run rate went up to 10 runs an over, by that time and Hardik along with Pant tried their best to keep the momentum going, but once Hardik got out it was all over for India. Dhoni and Jadhav showed no intent to chase down 71 runs off the remaining 31 balls.
India lost the match by 31 runs, Bairstow received the man of the match award for his hundred.
STATS
- Jonny Bairstow scored his first World Cup Hundred.
- Shami became the 6th Indian bowler after Kapil Dev (1983), Robin Singh (1999), Venkatesh Prasad (1999), Ashish Nehra (2003) & Yuvraj Singh (2011) to take a five-wicket haul in World Cup.
- Virat Kohli became the first Indian to score five consecutive fifties in the World Cup tournament.
- Rohit Sharma scored his fourth World Cup Hundred, only Tendulkar (6), Sangakkara (5) and Ponting (5) have scored more World Cup hundreds than Rohit.
