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England started like it was 2019. Chris Woakes was moving the ball around, David Willey was doing the same, Adil Rashid got wickets, a northerner bothered the lower order and no one could hit Moeen Ali. India had Rohit Sharma, who was good in 2019 too, with smaller cameos from Sky and KL to get them 229. The commentators all thought England would win.
But why? Once India got past 170, I thought they might struggle.
The conditions were the only thing it was hard to factor in. But the Indian bowlers are good, and the English batters are already deciding what movie they want to watch on the flight home. Bumrah and Shami were on hat tricks, and then it was a case of how long it would take.
England are on the bottom of the table, so well done to them for even making this contest for a little while. This is the worst World Cup defense we have ever seen. Or to put it the way England would, they have attacked last place.
Shami’s surprise (JK)
Mohammed Shami was kept out of this side by R Ashwin, fair, and Shardul Thakur. I get the balance thing, but oh my. And now he has the equal 11th most wickets in World Cups ever. It’s quite the journey, right?
But more than that is the pace he gets them. When he picked up his fourth (this match) and forthiest (all time) he did so at a rate of a wicket every 17 balls. Even accounting for how often modern bowlers take wickets compared to the old days, he is five balls quicker than Mitchell Starc. I thought coming in Boult and Starc had a chance of going for the World Cup legend status, Shami is doing it from the bench.
The spell to Stokes was incredible. My favourite bit was that while the ball was moving, and that was a big advantage. He has the ability to move the ball both ways at will. Stokes looked lost, and he thought his only option was to back away and try smash one through the offside to get the ball into the dew. Now this is part of England’s style. But this wasn’t smart Bazballing or even a clever T20 attack. Stokes was reduced to a club slogger hoping to get one away. And the one he chose was fast, darted in, and kept a little low. All of this made Stokes look worse, but even so, he was frazzled by incredible bowling.
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