India and England continue their ODI series on Sunday when the two sides leave Nagpur and head for Cuttack for game two of the three, the first in which the home team have the chance to claim the spoils with a win.
India won the opening match of the series in comfortable fashion on Thursday and a win here will give them the series with a game to play. If England want to go to Ahmedabad on Wednesday with the series still alive they have to win here.
India
You certainly wouldn’t say that it was a perfect performance for India in the opening match of the series. It probably was never going to be when you consider how relatively infrequent their recent ODI matches have been and when you also factor in that the attention will be on winning the upcoming Champions Trophy as much as coming out on top here, but the fact that they did win that first game gives them a decent platform to build from with the natural improvement that they should get for the run out.
India were quite expensive in the powerplay overs, but as we have seen so often in the past, they were able to rein things back in during the middle overs when the spinners came on and in the end they were able to restrict England to a total which never looked enough. India lost a couple of wickets more than they would have wanted to in the run chase but after a tricky opening five overs with the bat there was never a time where you thought India were not going to get to their target.
England
Supporters of the England cricket team would have wanted to have seen a different side in that opening ODI but while the coach might have changed since their last ODI outing, nothing else looked to have as the same naïve mistakes kept on coming along and when they were all put together you would have to say that the tourists never really gave themselves a chance of winning. If England are going to win the Champions Trophy they have to work out how to bat 50 overs with their key batters at the crease for most of the overs.
This team are five down too quickly too often and while you wouldn’t mind it if the opposition did brilliant things for that to happen, often it is down to the ego of the batters who constantly hole out in the deep, seemingly with no accountability for those same errors. That was the case in the first ODI in Nagpur and once again you have to feel sorry for their bowlers who were never given a chance of getting them out of trouble such was how far below par England were with the bat. A huge improvement is needed in the approach of those batters.
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Team News
India surprisingly left Virat Kohli out of their XI for the opening match and while you wouldn’t say that they missed him they will surely want to get him a game in the middle before the Champions Trophy. Rishabh Pant is another who will want to be included.
England confirmed ahead of the series that Jofra Archer would only play two of the three matches so it might be that he sits this one out and Mark Wood comes in for him. Jamie Smith would be useful if fit but the consensus seems to be that this game comes too soon.
Betting
I don’t think there is a need to overthink this one. We know exactly how England are going to play, we’ve seen enough of the red ball team under Brendon McCullum and the evidence we have in the six white ball matches under him have offered nothing different. They are going to attack with the bat and they will have catchers in place in a bid to take wickets with the ball. That bowling strategy is to be admired and when it comes off it will be really good but that approach will lead to them conceding a huge number of boundaries.
There were 66 boundaries in the opening game and that was despite Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone and Rohit Sharma not registering anything to the tally so there is immediately the potential for more boundaries. Then when you add in those who didn’t play in the T20 matches have had a run out in this format and will be better for it that should bring more along and then factor in that this is a very high scoring ground and there is plenty of reason to think that the 66 boundaries in Nagpur can have two added on top to cover the 67.5 line.
Tips
Back Over 67.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
