Key events
7th over: India 111-1 (Abishek 72, Varma 21) Oh Em Gee. Rashid can’t stop the runs. Abishek Sharma bludgeons two HUGE sixes down the ground, the second of which nearly reached thew top tier of the Wankhede, mahoosive. England won the toss and chose to field remember… Rashid keeps the rest of the over down to four singles. Small mercies.
6th over: India 95-1 (Abishek 58, Varma 19) India have racked up their highest powerplay on record. Easily. Won’t someone think of the poor OBO scribe’s fingers? Liam Livingstone is summoned to bowl some of his spinning allsorts and take the pace off. Abishek carves through point for four and Tilak Varma clubs consecutive boundaries to make it fifteen off the over. Here comes Adil Rashid, can he put the skids on? He’s the number one spinner in the world, England need him to show it right now, they are staring down the barrel of a nosebleed inducing score.
5th over: India 80-1 (Abishek 53, Varma 11) Jamie Overton into the attack. Hello Gruesome! He’s greeted with consecutive SIXES down the ground as Abishek Sharma scores India’s second fastest T20I fifty – off just 17 balls! Ravi Shastri and Kevin Pietersen are on the tv commentary together and my eardrums are in real danger of being blown to smithereens. It’s all good fun… just let me find the remote control. Tilak Varma gets in on the act, top edging a SIX down to fine leg and then crunching a four back down the ground. 25 runs off Overton’s first over.
4th over: India 55-1 (Abishek 38, Varma 1) Abishek Sharma is well and truly on one. He rocks back and pulls Mark Wood square for four and then guesses that the next ball is going to be full he leans forward and languidly drives down the ground for four more as if he’s facing the military medium of Mark Ealham rather than the 90+mph speeds of Mark Wood. Wonderful batting. SIX! Abishek throws his hands at another short ball and gets a huge piece of it, the ball sailing into the stands square on the off side. Wood finishes with a dot but the over has cost sixteen runs and India are flying – 50 up after just four overs.
3rd over: India 39-1 (Abishek 23, Varma 0) Archer is flashed over cover for four by Abishek and then plooped for two over mid off, the fielder not quite able to scrabble back and get under the catch. SIX! What a shot that is – an uppercut outside off stump, the ball wasn’t even that wide – but was flayed away. SIX more! Abishek follows up with a majestic launch over cover! Eighteen off the over and Jofra Archer has been clobbered for 34 runs off two overs. Gulp.
2nd over: India 21-1 (Abishek 5, Varma 0) Tilak Varma is the new batter. England move a leg slip in place for the flick in the air. Wood goes outside off stump and the new batter leaves it alone. A lesser spotted leave.
Roger Binny and Rishi Sunak are in the crowd at the Wankhede. There’s a joke to be made there somewhere but I don’t have the time.
WICKET! Sanju Samson c Archer b Wood 16 (India 21-1)
Mark Wood from t’other end and he starts with a fast and wide yorker that lands inside the tramlines. Dot ball. Wood then tests out the middle of the pitch and is pulled for two by Abishek. These two batters are going to take everything on, be in no doubt about that. Wood is up at 93MPH in his first few balls… he goes short again, Samson pulls away but much flatter this time and he has hit it straight down Jofra Archer’s throat on the square leg boundary. Groundhog Day dismissal for the batter, England set the trap and it is Wood that picks him up this time.
1st over: India 16-0 (Samson 16, Abishek 0) What a start! Archer goes short and Sanju Samson does not mess about, pulling away with sweet timing over midwicket for SIX! Archer licks his wounds and responds by inflicting his own, another short ball spears into Samson’s glove and there’s a delay whilst the batter calls for some magic spray treatment.
Archer has two slips in place and goes full at the pads, a muted appeal as the ball hit Samson just outside the line and the bowler knew it. SIX MORE! Archer tries another bouncer and is swivelled away behind square with the pace on the hook by Samson. Four more flayed away over the vacant third area makes it 16-0 and first blood to India.
Righto, the players head out onto the field. Jofra Archer is going to start with the ball. Sanju Samson is on strike. Abishek is at the non-striker’s end. There’s a short leg in place. Let’s play!
The eagle eyed amongst you will have spotted that Shivam Dube is playing today, less than 48 hours after failing that concussion test. Chicanery afoot! No doubt that is what prompted Buttler to list his subs bench. Bit of neeeeedle today at the Wankhede I reckon.
“I caught you listing out your impact subs…”
There’s a pointed and quite funny moment at the toss as Jos Buttler insists on listing his four impact subs with a bit of a twinkle in his eye and the beginnings of a smirk on his face.
Is this a sign of the new mischievous/larky Buttler? He did say before the series that he’d been practicing smiling in the mirror. Seriously. Give him a a few more matches and he’ll be doing witty little monologues like ‘Cinch’ slathered Tony Hancock.
Teams:
India: Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Suryakumar Yadav (c), Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohammed Shami, Varun Chakravarthy.
England: Phil Salt (wk), Ben Duckett, Jos Buttler (c), Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone, Jacob Bethell, Jamie Overton, Brydon Carse, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood.
Mark Wood comes back in for Saqib Mahmood for England despite the latter impressing in the last match and Mohammed Shami replaces Arshdeep Singh for India.
England win the toss… and will bowl!
Joss Buttler calls the coin correctly at the toss as Ravi Shastri’s voice echoes around the stadium like a sonic boom. Buttler says he’s excited for the match, the crowd should be large and loud and they hope there’s a bit of dew around early doors to get the ball zipping.
India captain Suryakumar Yadav says he wanted to bat first so everybody is happy. Nice little mental flex from Sky there. Teams news incoming!
Preamble
James Wallace
Hello and welcome to the fifth and final T20 of this series between India and England. Actually, excuse me whilst I take the afternoon off, I’m not feeling it. Here’s Rob Smyth to OBO in my place. He’s vastly more experienced at this stuff, has more stats and facts at his disposal than almost anyone, is a really quick typer and isn’t hungover/sleep deprived/racked with a perennial nag of existential ennui… you don’t mind do you? Over to you Rob!
I’m being facetious (but truthful about Rob) of course, in case you missed it there was some controversy in the last match as Shivam Dube was conked on the helmet whilst batting, prompting a concussion replacement for India, Harshit Rana came in for his Twenty20 international debut during the England innings. Now, Rana is a far better bowler than Dube, this was no ‘like-for-like change’, as the rules state.
Jos Buttler didn’t go full sour grapes after the match, England should have won the match regardless and squandered an opportunity to tie the series and set up a shootout at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai today, but he made his feelings clear:
It’s not a like-for-like replacement, we don’t agree with that…either Shivam Dube has put on about 25mph with the ball or Harshit has really improved his batting. It’s part of the game. I still think we should have gone on to win the match. But we disagree with the decision. We’ll ask Javagal [Srinath, the match referee] some questions just to get some clarity around it.”
So the series might be gone but there’ll be a bit of frisson and an England side looking to prove a point coming up against and Indian side wanting to put any questions about the validity of their series win to bed with a 4-1 victory overall.
I’m afraid you are stuck with me, Jim here in a sunny south London (i’m not hungover… promise). Play begins at 1.30pm GMT – a little over half an hour’s time. I’ll be back imminently with news of the teams and toss.
