England skipper Jos Buttler expressed his disappointment after their 100-run loss against India at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow on Sunday. Buttler asked India to bat first and the defending champions came up with an inspiring bowling performance.
Chris Woakes found the gulf between Shubman Gill’s bat and pad to hit the stumps whereas David Willey had his RCB teammate Virat Kohli dismissed after Liam Livingstone kept the veteran on naught with a sharp fielding effort.
Subsequently, Shreyas Iyer played a poor shot against a short-pitched delivery, which is becoming his kryptonite. However, Rohit Sharma showed all the gumption and scored a fine knock of 87 runs. The Indian skipper added 91 runs with KL Rahul, who scored 39. SKY then added the finishing touches with 49 but India could only manage 229 runs, which everyone thought was short of par.
However, India’s pace attack made 229 look like 300 runs on the board after Jasprit Bumrah twin strikes of Dawid Malan and Joe Root. Mohammed Shami breathed down the neck of Ben Stokes and the left-hander was dismissed while trying to play a cross-batted shot.
Jonny Bairstow then chopped the ball back onto his stumps against Shami whereas England skipper Jos Buttler was dismissed by a beauty from Kuldeep Yadav to leave Three Lions in tatters at 52-5. Shami then had Moeen Ali edged behind to KL Rahul on the first ball of his second spell and England’s tail could not wag around in the end as they were skittled out for only 129 runs.
This is the first time when England have lost four World Cup matches in a row as their forgettable World Cup campaign continues.
Jos Buttler said in the post-match presentation, “Very disappointed. At the halfway stage, chasing 230, we fancied ourselves, same old story. I wasn’t sure if dew would come or not. We bowled well, took wickets, we would have taken 229. Personally, I wanted to soak some pressure up and then build a partnership and kill the momentum that India had. It’s about committing and executing your skill.”
He added, “There wasn’t scoreboard pressure. We are just falling short whichever way we are doing it. Some top players, we are a long way short of our best. Excellent start in the powerplay, there was a bit of indifferent bounce, the ground fielding was good. It felt like today was the day, but we didn’t back it up with the bat. We still got lots to play for.”
England will next take on arch-rivals Australia at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad on Saturday.
