Ending With A Bang
The 3 T20Is between India and England may have been boring if one simply glanced at the results. India sealed the deal at 2 matches , but that takes away from the last match , an otherwise throwaway game 3 , which almost came down the wire .
Batting first , England had nothing to fight for except their honour on home soil . India on the other side were just trying to continue an already historic series. England played very well batting first , Riding on D Malan’s 77 and Livingstone’s 42, England looked to make a sizeable total , but to simply pile on India came the bottom order batsmen Harry Brook and Chris Jordan . They merely played 12 balls or 2 overs between the 2 , but scored 30 runs , 25 more than what is expected from a bowler against a world class bowling outfit . This propelled an already big score at Trent Bridge to a massive 215.
Chasing the massive score, the Indian top-order fell like a set of bowling pins. In fact, except for 2 batsmen , no one in India even crossed the score of 11. So how was the game called close ?
It was simply due to the Herculean effort of one batsman , Suryakumar Yadav. He rarely gets starlight upon him , given the calibre of the players he shares a locker room with , but today he was singlehandedly the reason India almost won . Scoring 117 runs for his side while not even being one of the openers , and shouldering the meek possibility of victory all alone may have been too much for him , but his effort and batting prowess commanded respect from everyone , his teammates , opponents, and even the home team’s fans , who gave him a standing ovation for his effort.
While ending on a loss , India did learn some things with this game. While the opening partnerships did fall fast and hard , we now have the assurance that our batsmen down the order can put up more than just a good fight. Overall this 3 game series with 3 really good and fighting games , highlighted by the last game . Lets look forward to the ODIs and hope they deliver on the stage set by the Test match and the T20s!