Embarrassed thrice in four matches, England need their batters to stand up

The last time England went 1-0 down at home to India in ODI cricket, something truly remarkable happened. Joe Root struck back-to-back unbeaten centuries, with the second of those tons, in the series decider at Headingley, featuring the iconic ‘mic (bat) drop’ celebration. Root later went on to describe that celebration as ‘literally the most embarrassing thing I've done on a cricket field’ but his teammates, captain and fans wouldn’t mind the talisman pulling it out again come the second ODI at Lord’s.

Because it wasn’t anywhere near as embarrassing as England’s batting performance on Tuesday, where they shattered all unnecessary records. The talk that preceded the encounter was how India might be intimidated by the ‘Big 5’ that is Roy, Bairstow, Root, Buttler and Stokes — who banded together for the first time since the 2019 World Cup Final — but the visitors steamrolled the Three Lions as if they were minnows. 

Such a collapse could have been brushed under the carpet had it been a one-off, but thrice in four games in the limited-overs leg of this tour, England have been floored and knocked out by the brand new Kookaburra ball. 

It is still very early days, but Thursday’s encounter at Lord’s feels like a must win for Jos Buttler to ease pressure off him and his side, and stop the world from overreacting. By no means will it be easy against an Indian side that is not only borderline-invincible in bilaterals, but already has the number of its opposition and is thirsty for more blood. 

England need Jason Roy to snap out of the rut

Here’s the thing with Jason Roy: when he’s good, he tends to be reallyyyyyy good (we all remember his good days, don’t we?). And when he’s bad, he tends to be so bad that it makes you want to smash your TV remote and question his credibility as an opener (FYI a couple of years ago, he went through a lean patch in ODIs where he registered scores of 21, 24, 0, 1, 3, 21 and 0 in consecutive innings).

Unfortunately for England, Roy seems to be in one of those ‘bad’ phases where he can do no right. What exactly happened to Roy between the Netherlands series — which he ended with scores of 101* and 73 — and the start of the India tour, we don’t know, but he’s looked like a player absolutely deprived of confidence. 

It was painful to watch him bat at The Oval on Tuesday, where he was crushed by Bumrah across five deliveries. The groan after chopping a wide one onto his stumps felt like a culmination of everything that’d unfolded in the week leading up to that particular dismissal. 

Contrary to what’s being said on social media, Roy won’t be playing for his place in these last two games despite Phil Salt lurking in the squad — he entered this series having averaged 58.33 in his last 7 ODI innings —  but England will be hoping that he somehow snaps out of this rut, for the team’s sake. The Indian bowlers have found it far too easy to punch a hole through the hosts’ top-order and that has had a cascading effect on the entire batting line-up. 

Bairstow and Root, in all likelihood, will bounce back in the second game but if England can get Roy to somehow join the party, they’ll go a long way in challenging the visitors and leveling the series.

Do not bowl short to Rohit Sharma

For some reason, the English seamers, at The Oval, thought that bowling short to Rohit Sharma was a good idea. Across his 58-ball stay, the Indian skipper made sure that he taught the visiting bowlers a lesson: never bowl short to Rohit Sharma, not in this form of the game at least.

Rohit, in all, faced 16 balls that were either back-of-a-length or short, and collected a staggering 44 runs from them. Each of the 5 sixes he hit in the first ODI came off attempted bumpers. 

The prime victim of Rohit’s short-ball assault was Byrdon Carse, who paid the price for bowling 75% of his deliveries to the right-hander either back of a length or short. The Indian skipper collected 32 runs off the 16 balls he faced versus Carse, smashing as many as three sixes. 

The English bowlers made a blunder at The Oval and got punished. The Lord’s game will tell us if they’ve learned from their mistakes. 

India would want to get tested more

Silly as it may sound, team India, one feels, would be desperate for England to test and challenge them. Because ultimately there were zero learnings from the first ODI. The Oval game told us that Jasprit Bumrah is a god, Mohammed Shami is a magician when he gets it right and Rohit-Dhawan are, without a doubt, the country’s best opening pair. But we already know all of this. 

India will need England to push them so that they can learn more about this ODI team.

Is Prasidh capable of standing up when the new-ball bowlers have an off day? Has Rishabh Pant actually cracked the ODI code? Where does Ravindra Jadeja’s bowling stand, and how much better an ODI batsman is Hardik Pandya 2.0?

They’ll be hoping to find all this out. For that, they’ll ironically need the English batters to show some resistance.

Probable XIs

Expect England to not overreact and field an unchanged XI

England: Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler (c & wk), Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Craig Overton, David Willey, Brydon Carse, Reece Topley

Kohli’s fitness remains a mystery. But should he be passed fit, the veteran will take the place of Shreyas Iyer in the starting XI.

India: Rohit Sharma (c), Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli / Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal, Prasidh Krishna