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Fifty to Duckett
11th over: England 81-1 (Duckett 51, Root 0) Chakaravarthy had just sprung a surprise by bowling a no-ball. That gave Salt a free hit, whcih he couldn’t do anything with – he went for a legside heave, much to the disapproval of Kevin Pietersen, who said the ball was bound to be turning the other way, so “don’t hit against the spin”. Salt’s mis-heave brought a single, which allowed Duckett to take a single and reach a fine fluent fifty from only 36 balls. But maybe the mis-heave also made Salt go for the big shot that brought his downfall.
WICKET! Salt c Jadeja b Chakaravarty 26 (England 81-1)
Chakaravarty does it again! His first victim in ODIs is Phil Salt, going for a huge slog-sweep and merely sending a top edge into the safe hands of Jadeja at mid-on.
10th over: England 75-0 (Salt 24, Duckett 48) Pandya starts well again – dot, dot, one – but then Salt spots a slower ball, opens his shoulders and hits a six over long-on. That’s the first six of the day and it won’t be the last. Salt follows up with a late cut for two, which would have been four had Ravi Jadeja not produced some nifty footwork on the third-man boundary. Here endeth the Powerplay, with these two still going serenely.
9th over: England 66-0 (Salt 16, Duckett 47) And here it is, spin time. Rohit gives pride of place to the new boy, Varun Chakaravarthy, who is also an old boy. At 33 he is apparently India’s oldest ODI debutant since Farokh Engineer, back in the mists of the 1970s. The batters treat his Kumble-ish leg-breaks with respect, settling for singles and finding only four of them, to make this the best over so far for India.
8th over: England 62-0 (Salt 14, Duckett 45) Hardik starts his over well – dot, one, dot – but then gives Duckett a freebie on the pads, which he clips for four more. It feels as if England have to get 300 here, and that will hinge on how they handle the spinners.
7th over: England 54-0 (Salt 12, Duckett 39) So how does Salt celebrate that reprieve? By driving the next ball for four. It’s still Shami and, great bowler though he is, that’s fine by the batters on this small ground. Duckett cuts for four yet again to bring up the fifty partnership, the third in a row from these two. Getting a start hasn’t been England’s problem: the question is, can they avoid their customary middle-overs collapse?
6th over: England 44-0 (Salt 7, Duckett 34) Rohit makes his first bowling change, replacing Harshit Rana with Hardik Pandya. He bowls a fuller length but gives Duckett some width, allowing him to take two, four and one in the cover-point region. Salt faces the last ball as Graeme Swann, on commentary, makes an astute point, saying that being outscored by your opening partner brings pressure and he may go for a big shot now. Salt duly plays a lavish upper-cut, the ball soars into the air over third man – and Axar Patel drops it!
5th over: England 35-0 (Salt 6, Duckett 27) Shami has an LBW shout against Salt, probably going down, and then bowls a wild delivery to Duckett, a wide way down the leg side. KL Rahul does well to get a hand to it and stop it turning into five wides. As Shami switches back to the off side, Duckett cuts for four.
4th over: England 28-0 (Salt 6, Duckett 22) Rana continues, tall and military, though not medium. Duckett pulls him for four more, hitting it beautifully. Phil Salt is just a passenger in Duckett’s Porsche.
3rd over: England 23-0 (Salt 5, Duckett 18) If you’re going to flash, flash hard. Duckett cuts Shami with venom and collects four more as Chakaravarthy manages a dive but not a clean pick-up. Shami bounces back with three dots in a row as the commentators spot some uneven bounce, which may explain why Jos Buttler opted to bat first. Duckett finishes the over with a clip to long leg for four more. That’s five fours so far, and only three singles.
2nd over: England 15-0 (Salt 5, Duckett 10) Harshit Rana, so impressive the other day, starts with a loosener. It’s short of a length and Duckett finds the middle of the bat with a crunching pull. Then Duckett gets some more luck as he under-edges an attempted cut and picks up a jammy four to long stop.
1st over: England 6-0 (Salt 5, Duckett 1) Shami finds some swing right away. Phil Salt copes with it, tucking the first ball away for a single. Ben Duckett is less assured, edging the second but getting away with it as there’s no second slip. The first big shot comes from Salt, a slash outside off that connects with a whole lot of thin air – but then he tries again and gets it right, lifting the last ball over the ring.
The players are out there in the blazing sunshine and Mohammed Shami has the ball.
An email! “Mo Mentum,” says Andrew Benton. “Indeed, once Brendon McCullum has fired things up, it’s essential that Maureen Mentum pops in periodically to keep things moving in the right direction. Hope she’s now a member of the support staff. “ Ha.
Teams: India
At the toss, there was one moment that was greeted by a huge cheer. That was when Rohit Sharma mentioned that Yashasvi Jaiswal – possibly the best young player in the world – was being left out. The crowd don’t have anything against Jaiswal: it’s just that his replacement is Virat Kohli. Rohit announced one other change, with Kuldeep Yadav giving way to Varun Chakaravarthy, who makes his ODI debut. In the T20 series, he tied England up in knots.
India 1 Rohit (capt), 2 Gill, 3 Kohli, 4 Iyer, 5 Rahul (wkt), 6 Pandya, 7 Axar, 8 Jadeja, 9 Chakaravarthy, 10 Rana, 11 Shami.
Teams: England
Three changes for this struggling England side: Jacob Bethell has a hamstring injury, and Tom Banton (remember him?) is flying out to join the squad. Bethell’s place goes not to Rehan Ahmed, the other slow-bowling all-rounder, but to Jamie Overton. Mark Wood and Gus Atkinson also come in as Jofra Archer and Brydon Carse are rested. So England, whose policy of playing three fast bowlers hasn’t been a great success, now have four. That’s Brendon McCullum for you.
England 1 Salt (wkt), 2 Duckett, 3 Root, 4 Brook, 5 Buttler (capt), 6 Livingstone, 7 Overton, 8 Atkinson, 9 Rashid, 10 Wood, 11 Mahmood.
England win toss and bat
Jos Buttler wins the toss and, unusually, wants to bat first. “It looks,” says Rohit Sharma, “like a typical Indian pitch.”
Preamble
Morning everyone and welcome to the second game in the ODI series. This is it, the crunch. If England lose again, another series will be gone. If they win, it’ll be 1-1 and they may even go into the third and final game with a modicum of momentum.
The good news is that this match is taking place at Cuttack, which is traditionally full of runs. The bad news is that India lose only one game in four here: last time England were in town, eight years ago, they made 366 and still lost. The neither good nor bad news is that Cuttack hasn’t hosted an ODI for five years, so it may have changed its ways.
India, as usual, are hot favourites. They are so good at white-ball cricket that they can even get away with recalling their big names. Today, Virat Kohli is due back after missing the first ODI with a bad knee. It’s the kind of thing that can happen when you’re 36 and you’ve got 550 international games on the clock.
The first ball is due to be bowled at 1.30pm in Cuttack, which is 8am in London. I’ll be back about 25 minutes before that with the toss, the teams and possibly some toast.
