England captain Eoin Morgan believes the five-match T20I series had a lot of positives for the visitors but their middle-order batting was one of the grey areas. England openers Jos Buttler and Jason Roy were able to give decent starts to the team but the middle-order batting was the team’s Achilles Heel throughout the series. Players like Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Eoin Morgan, and Dawid Malan were not consistent for the visitors.
England lost the final deciding T20I by 36 runs after Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Bhuvneshwar Kumar came up with prolific performances for the hosts. In fact, the tourists were in the run-chase as Jos Buttler and Dawid Malan added a fine alliance of 130 runs for the second wicket. However, England were never in the game after the dismissal of Jos Buttler, who was dismissed by Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
Meanwhile, Morgan believes the powerplay bowling was one of the biggest positives for the team. Mark Wood and Jofra Archer had bowled at full throttle and troubled the Indian batsmen in the first and third T20I. Adil Rashid also opened the bowling and impressed with his skills.
Morgan admitted that the Indian team was brilliant in their own conditions and outplayed them in the three matches of the series.
“This series was extremely productive,” Morgan said. “To play against a strong Indian team in their own conditions was fantastic. India has outplayed us in certain big moments in the game and thoroughly deserved to win. We have played some really good cricket both today and throughout the whole series. There’s a lot of positives for us to build on.”
“When you look back in the game, in a similar instance to the last game, our middle-order probably haven’t fired as well as we would have liked,” he said. “At the back end of the games we have lost, our middle-order wasn’t as sharp as they normally are. One of our strengths is normally how quickly guys get in and adapt to surfaces. It didn’t necessarily happen.
England is the number one team in the ICC T20I rankings and they are known for their fearless batting approach. The visitors were competitive and they will look to bounce back in the ODI series.
The tourists will aim to come up with a better performance in the ODI series. India and England will now take on each other in the three-match ODI series, starting 23 March at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune behind closed doors.
