Poonam Shetty
Cricket Correspondent
New Delhi, Oct 17: England team seems to be going back to its old losing ways. If one has watched the second ODI of the five-match series against India at the Firozshah Kotla ground, where the team was completely outplayed by Indians by 8 wickets, one would surely remember those bygone days when England rarely won matches, until things changed a couple of years ago.
On Monday October 17, England failed in all the departments - batting, bowling and fielding. Moreover, the body language and behaviour of some of the players, who were getting into arguments with Indian batsmen for no reason, was outrageous.
First, no batsman in the England line-up could reach a fifty, besides losing two all-important wickets, including that of the out-of-form captain himself, in the first two overs. Though the side showed some resistance in the form of Jonathan Trot and Kevin Peterson, their dismissals in quick succession put more pressure on the visitors.
Indian players were not too brilliant on the field either, but they bowled well and played with a positive mind.
When England was back on field to restrict India to 237, their poor fielding further demoralised them, with catches being dropped and boundary after easy boundary making its way through the field. At least 20 India runs came in the form of misfieldings by the England players. Moreover, there were at least four dropped catches, including two lollipops that cost the English players heavily.
Alastair Cook admitted after the match that his team's fielding was below par, and that it need a major surgery before the third ODI is to be played at Mohali, Punjab on October 20.
Though England did not bowl so badly, Indian batsmen read the English bowlers easily and played with skill, keeping the scoreboard ticking. The stars of Indian batting were the two class players Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir, who rotated the strike well and managed to reach a record 200-run partnership.
Virat Kohli's 7th ODI hundred earned him not only the man of the match title but also instilled more confidence in the young batsman.
Apart from the Gambhir-Kohli partnership, the other highlight of the match was Karnataka medium pacer Vinay Kumar's brilliant bowling, scalping 4 wickets for 30 runs, which unfortunately went without much ado due to the huge margin of victory.
To conclude, if England wants to prove to the world that its recent success against India was not accidental, the team needs to pull up its socks and revert back to form. At the moment, the Englishmen are on low confidence, and if India continue in the same form, this could be a one-way series with 5-0 victory for India. A perfect revenge, indeed!
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Second ODI: India Demolish England by Eight Wickets