India win Thriller as Curran wins Hearts | India vs England 3rd ODI Match Review |

 

Millions of cricket fans; be it avid or casual, were glued to their seats as Natarajan bowled the final over that decided the fate of the entire ODI series as a young Sam Curran fearlessly stood at the other end of the pitch, fighting for his country alone. Everyone watching the spectacle knew that they were watching something historical unfold. How did the match get there and what happened next? Read the article to find out just how.

Playing XI:

India - Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli (c), Rishabh Pant (wk), KL Rahul, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Shardul Thakur, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan, Prasidh Krishna.

England – Jonny Bairstow, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, Dawid Malan, Jos Buttler (c&wk), Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Sam Curran, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood, Reece Topley.

 

India 1^st Innings – Pant-Pandya help India reach a Respectable Total

After losing the toss for the 10^th time this tour, Virat Kohli’s team was asked yet again to bat first. Owing to the slow starts in the last two innings, Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma gave India a blinder of a start. Shikhar, especially, was firing on all cylinders as the duo made their intent crystal clear. Dhawan reached his fifty and in no time, the Rohit-Shikhar duo had put up a 100-run partnership. Buttler was forced to bring the spinners onto the attack as his pacers weren’t getting any margin for error. What followed was the slow and complete disarray of the Indian top order. Rashid dismissed Rohit (37) and then Shikhar for 67. At the other end, his spin partner Moeen Ali dismissed Kohli for 7 while Livingstone removed KL for the same as well. India; at that point, seemed to have lost control over their innings but there was another twist in the tale. At 157-4 came to bat Hardik Pandya as the prolific duo of him and Pant took to the spinners like a panther to its prey. They absolutely dismantled the spin bowling by their sixes and put up a 99-run stand. Pant’s fine innings came to an end after he was dismissed by Sam Curran for 78 and no longer after that Hardik was removed by Stokes for 64 as well. Krunal (25) and Shardul (30) helped India cross the 300-run margin not before the entire team was bowled out for 329 in 48.2 overs. All of the 7 bowlers that bowled got one or more wickets from the English side however Mark Wood stood out from the rest with his splendid spell of 7-1-34-3. Adil Rashid picked up a couple of wickets as well.

 

England 2^nd Innings – Sam Curran, remember the name

It was quintessential for England to get a good start in order to chase the huge target ahead of them but there was a major hindrance lying in between, Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Bhuvi made sure India were ahead of England since the very first over as he got the key wickets of one Jason Roy (14) and then Jonny Bairstow (1). Ben Stokes and Dawid Malan tried to revive the English innings after the mayhem caused by Bhuvi in his first two overs. They added a few vital runs and made sure the run rate never dipped below the asking rate. This didn’t last quite long and despite being dropped earlier by Pandya, Stokes was dismissed by Natarajan for 35. Skipper Buttler (15) failed to impress with the bat as well as England were struggling at 95-4. Malan got to his maiden ODI half century but was immediately dismissed by Shardul as well. Cameos from Livingstone (36) and Ali (29) despite being commendable weren’t quite up to the ask. Struggling at 200-7 Sam Curran was England’s last trick in the book and it almost did the impossible. The 22-year old with very little help from his fellow Englishmen built two vital partnerships en-route to the target set by the opposition. His 57-run partnership with Adil Rashid was admirable but his 60-run partnership with Mark Wood showed exactly to what extent Sam Curran has matured as a cricketer. He stood alone in the middle with a never say die attitude and fought for his country till the last ball was bowled. Showing great character, Curran refused singles and played the majority of the balls all by himself, facing beaming yorkers from seasoned vets like Bhuvneshwar and Thakur. But despite all the mesmerizing effort, it was yet another case of “so near yet so far.” At the outset, India emerged as the better team as Sam Curran couldn’t quite help England cross the finish line despite taking the match till the very last ball. India beat England as the visitors fell short just by 7 runs as a result of some magnificent bowling and character shown by the Indian bowlers. Out of the 9 wickets taken by India, 7 belonged to Bhuvi and Shardul Thakur. Thakur was the lead among the bowlers registering figures of 10-0-67-4 whereas Bhuvneshwar finished with figures of 10-0-42-3.

 

Man of the Match – Sam Curran (95 runs off 83 balls and 5-0-43-1)

Man of the Series – Jonny Bairstow (219 runs)

 

Conclusion – Despite the result, this match will be fondly remembered by cricket fans throughout the world as sort of a coming of age innings from Sam Curran. The young gun has so much to offer to the cricket world and his journey has just started. I can go on and on with my praises but the fact is that one requires grit and courage to play such an innings which is rarely found these days. England have a lot to work on after they’ll look back to this series. Their death bowling, middle order, inconsistent batting, rotation policy etc. all need to be worked upon. You cannot claim to be the champions of world cricket if you don’t put in your A-game every time you step foot on the ground. India, on the other hand, must be pleased with their performance. With a lot of key players like Jadeja, Shreyas, Bumrah, Shami still not present, they managed to conquer the best team in the world. They were lead well and the workload of the players was managed extremely well. Kudos!

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, the winners of the PayTM ODI Series – Team India