On the third anniversary of their famous World Cup win, England return to Lord’s looking to draw level in the ODI series with India after they were humbled in the opening game at The Oval earlier in the week.
India head to HQ knowing that this is the first of two chances they will have to win the series but they will want to get it done here and now so that they can manage the workload of their players in what is a busy spell.
England
You would have to say that England put in one of their worst ODI performances of the last six or so years in that opening game. There was naïve batting and then some ridiculous stuff and the end result was that they never looked like having enough runs. It is all well and good looking to impose yourselves on an opposition but you have to do it in a way where you have the percentages on your side and not all England batters did that.
It goes without saying that England are going to have to bat a whole lot better than they did in that opening game but Lord’s isn’t always a ground they have scored well on. That is because the slope creates enough doubts within their mind so hold them back from being as aggressive as they would like to be. We might find out more about this England bowling unit here because we can’t really judge them on that first effort as they had nothing to defend.
India
It is very rare for a team to put together a complete performance in the first game of a series but India did just that at The Oval on Tuesday. They bowled absolutely brilliantly but what was so good about their bowling was how quickly they got a grasp of the conditions. They were in favour of bowling but the bowlers still had to put the ball in the right place and they did that relentlessly. If they can repeat that performance they’ll be very tough to beat here.
The only thing you could pick fault at with India in that opening match was their running between the wickets. It is a mystery how the opening partnership stayed intact but you would imagine that issue will sort itself out when the two players get familiar with each other again having not played together much recently. The only other concern is that their middle order didn’t bat in the previous game but they had enough time at the crease in the T20s so that shouldn’t be much of a concern.
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Team News
England were terrible with the bat at The Oval but you would imagine that if they were to make any changes for this match they would come with the ball such is the strength of those batters they picked. Sam Curran and Matt Parkinson will be in contention given it will be a scorching day.
India are unlikely to tinker too much with their side unless Virat Kohli is passed fit to play. There is certainly no need to bring him back in so we could very well see an unchanged XI. If Kohli does come in Shreyas Iyer is most likely to miss out.
Betting
I don’t expect England to get it so spectacularly wrong in this second match as they did the opening game but I still think they will come out second best in this game. So far in the white ball stuff England haven’t laid a glove on India when India have had their strongest side out and Lord’s is not a happy hunting ground for them in terms of winning matches. Of course they did win the World Cup here three years ago but they only tied that final and have won just three of their last nine ODIs on this ground.
That isn’t a surprise, as I highlighted above the slope on this pitch just allows the ball to do enough for the England batters to have to rein themselves in a little and when this team get caught in two minds or the ball starts doing a bit and it will be almost impossible for a groundsman to prepare a road in the sweltering conditions London has experienced in the last week or so. India will be comfortable with these conditions and as we saw at The Oval have much the better bowling unit. I expect them to win the series here.
Tips
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