After Rohit Sharma’s valiant 87 on a difficult wicket, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami extinguished flames in their enchanted opening sessions as India defeated England by 100 runs to win their sixth consecutive World Cup in Lucknow on Sunday. Without the outstanding performance of captain Rohit (87 off 101 balls), who stood out when other Indian batsmen went by the wayside on a two-paced pitch, the decisive victory would not have been possible. In the last overs, Suryakumar Yadav (49) scored the crucial runs to take India to 229 for nine.
The ball was stolen by Shami (4/22) and Bumrah (3/32) as England’s batting team collapsed to 129 all out in 34.5 overs, their fifth defeat in six games.
In order to complete a hat-trick, Bumrah dismissed Dawid Malan (16) and Joe Root (0) off consecutive balls. Shami similarly removed Jonny Bairstow (14) and Ben Stokes (0), who experienced a moment of weakness after being repeatedly defeated.
Stokes put himself in a position where he could be spooked by the ball and tried to find space to blast Shami out of the park. First spell stats for Bumrah and Shami were an impressive 5-1-17-2 and 4-0-5-2, respectively.
Jos Buttler (10) was removed by Kuldeep Yadav with a beautiful delivery that pitched well beyond the off stump, making it 52 for five.
After rejoining the attack, Shami claimed his third wicket by catching Moeen Ali (15) behind.
India was awarded the first-ever batsmanship in the event before. However, only Suryakumar and Rohit managed to bat on a challenging pitch with a two-paced surface, as the rest failed to bat at a faster tempo.
India was at 40 for three in the 12th over when Rohit and K L Rahul (39 off 58) combined for 91 runs to steady the innings.
Along with Suryakumar, Rohit scored 33 significant runs, however the captain’s collapse resulted in a string of wickets being taken. Finally, England produced a performance that matched that of the defending champions, dominating both the ball and the pitch.
In his seven-over stint with the new ball, Chris Woakes (2/33) made an impression when leggie Adil Rashid (2/35) started to collect wickets in the middle of the given overs.
The India captain relieved pressure by hitting the left-arm bowler for two sixes and a four in his next over after taking six dot balls in Willey’s opening over of the match.
While Rohit was creating boundaries with his feet against pacers and spinners, players like Virat Kohli (0 off 9 balls) and Shreyas Iyer (4 from 16) fell off the pitch in an attempt to find a release shot.
For Kohli, it was an uncommon experience as he attempted to step out like Rohit but miscued his shot to Stokes at mid-off.
With a brilliantly placed short ball that went large on the India number four, Woakes sent Shreyas back.
Woakes performed well on Sunday despite having trouble with accuracy thus far in the World Cup.
India selected five bowlers once more in Hardik Pandya’s absence, however R Ashwin was not included in the playing eleven.
