da imperador bet： The standout innings of the game went in vain largely because India’s top order came undone
da casino： Karthik Krishnaswamy10-Jul-2022Trent Bridge has arguably pushed the boundaries of white-ball cricket farther than any other international ground in recent times, and Sunday’s third T20I contained an innings that did just that. It didn’t come in a winning cause, but it pointed to what the future of T20 batting might look like.Suryakumar Yadav scored 117 off 55 balls, and he did this in a chase of 216 where no other India batter passed 30 and only one other passed 20. He did this with a control percentage of nearly 91%. That’s an excellent figure in a Test innings, and a positively surreal one in the shortest format. For large swathes of his innings, he seemed to hit any line or length to any part of the field he wished to target, and England’s bowlers could seemingly do nothing to contain him.Getting him to the other end was their best bet, usually; the other members of India’s top seven scored 64 off 57 balls between them. Even so, Suryakumar kept India in their chase; he brought the equation down to 25 with nine balls left, with an offspinner bowling the penultimate over, and with an impending over-rate penalty about to force England to have only four boundary fielders in the last over.But off the penultimate ball of that penultimate over, Suryakumar’s ball-striking failed him for perhaps the first time in his innings, and he walked back to a standing ovation. The over-rate penalty was suddenly less of an issue for England, and Chris Jordan, bowling with a lower-order pair at the crease, closed out the game with a three-run final over. England had avoided being blanked 3-0 at home, but only just, no matter that the victory margin may have been a healthy-looking 17 runs.Malan feasts on new-look attack
Having wrapped up the series win, India rung in the changes, most of which impacted their bowling. No Bhuvneshwar Kumar, no Jasprit Bumrah, no Yuzvendra Chahal and perhaps most significantly no Hardik Pandya. Without the cushion of the allrounder, India were down to five bowling options who would each have to bowl their full quotas, irrespective of how they fared on the day.They didn’t do too badly at the start, as Jos Buttler chopped on after a promising start, and Jason Roy struggled for fluency, hacking his way to 26 off 26 before top-edging a slash off Umran Malik.But Dawid Malan played an excellent hand, getting off to a quicker-than-usual start and rushing along thereafter, taking particular toll of two bowlers whose styles perfectly suit his game. He scored 17 off eight balls against the quick and generally short-of-a-length Malik, and 28 off 11 balls against Ravindra Jadeja, whose left-arm spin is usually hidden away from left-hand batters. With no sixth bowler to turn to, India didn’t have that option here.Malan had got to 77 off 38 balls and looked set for a hundred when Ravi Bishnoi struck two key blows in the 17th over. His exaggerated angle across them and his propensity to get his wrong’un to dip sharply make him a major threat to left-handers, and he dismissed both Malan and Moeen Ali in the space of three balls to bring India much-needed respite after an 84-run fourth-wicket stand between Malan and Liam Livingstone.But it was short-lived respite, as Livingstone, Harry Brook and Jordan ransacked 46 runs off the last 19 balls of the innings to propel England to 215.Dawid Malan was typically fluent through the off side•PA Photos via Getty images
India stutter at the top
Rohit Sharma and Rishabh Pant opened once again for India, but they didn’t repeat their successes from Saturday’s game at Edgbaston. Both David Willey and Reece Topley got the new ball to swing just enough to keep their scoring down in the first two overs, in which time Pant fell to a bottom-edged swipe across the line.Then Virat Kohli came out and played an unusual sort of T20 innings by his standards, indicative of India’s target today, but perhaps also of the demands of the new coaching regime. He stepped out of his crease to the first four balls of Willey’s second over, whipped one of them for four, drove one for a handsome straight six, and then slapped one into the hands of short extra-cover.Then Rohit, having hit two fours earlier in the over, failed to manufacture enough power to clear deep midwicket off a Topley slower ball in the fifth over. India were 31 for 3.The full 360, but only from one end
Playing his first game of the series, Shreyas Iyer played an innings that would have provided ample ammunition to his doubters. Against the spin of Moeen and Livingstone, he hit two sixes and scored 16 off eight balls. Against the quicker bowlers, he scored 12 off 15 balls and failed to find the boundary even once. And he was out while shuffling to make room against a short ball.And yet, his 23-ball 28 was part of a partnership of 119 in just 61 balls.The runs mostly flowed from the blade of Suryakumar, and they came in every possible direction: over mid-off and extra-cover, with left elbow high; wide of long-on with a whip of the wrists; behind square on the leg side with the shovel-sweep; and, most unstoppably, in the arc between cover point and third man with open-faced slices between or over the 30-yard ring. Of the 14 fours and six sixes he hit on the day, perhaps the most astonishing were his sixes over the off-side square boundary off Richard Gleeson and Jordan, off near-yorkers angling into the stumps.There were never enough boundary fielders when Suryakumar was on strike, but he was off strike often enough for England to remain in control of the game. And eventually, the target remained just beyond India’s reach. Along the way, however, Suryakumar ensured that he’ll be one of the first names on India’s team sheet, fitness permitting, when the World Cup rolls round in October.
