Key events
11th over: England 104-2 (Salt 40, Bethell 8) Salt drives Axar Patel over cover for four and then takes a single into the off side. Bethell sweeps for four to bring up England’s ton. Two more singles makes it 12 off the over.
10th over: England 92-2 (Salt 34, Bethell 2) SIX! Varun slams a short ball into the pitch but it sits up nicely for Salt who finally nails one over midwicket. He blows out his cheeks in relief. Thar she blows. Salt opens his shoulders to hit through the line and pick up four down the ground. Four more, poor bit of fielding from Prince Yadav at deep point, the spin on Salt’s cut shot making s fool of him.
Ten done. Salt and England needed that last over but I still have them down as second at the halfway stage.
9th over: England 74-2 (Salt 17, Bethell 1) Jacob Bethell off the mark with a leg glance to his first ball. Phil Salt is stinking the place out a little, he has 17 off 19 after being flummoxed by a slower ball bouncer and then finding the fielder with a full blooded pull shot.
WICKET! Harry Brook c Abhishek Sharma b Prince Yadav 16 (England 71-2)
Brook slaps Prince Yadav over extra cover for a one bounce four but the bowler gets his revenge with the next ball! Brook swipes into the leg side and sends a towering catch into the deep where Abishek Sharma clings on! The England captain on his way.
8th over: England 67-1 (Salt 16, Brook 12) Leggies from Varun Chakravarthy now. Buttler and Salt combine for eight runs off it but still can’t find the fence. This is becoming a problem for England.
7th over: England 59-1 (Salt 14, Brook 6) Shivam Dube starts with a slower ball bouncer that is way too wide and called so. Salt muscles one down the ground, I don’t think he’s middled one all innings. Sure enough he gets a toed end on the next and it squirts away for four. Brook clips for two into the leg side, England have only hit six boundaries so far and Buttler hit four of those.
6th over: England 49-1 (Salt 8, Brook 3) Not much Buttler could have done with that torpedo tbh. Harry Cherrington Brook replaces him out in the middle. This’ll be a quiet few overs… not. Having said that, tight fielding from India means there are only singles and one mistimed pull from Brook for two off the rest of the over. PowerPlay done, India on top.
WICKET! Jos Buttler b Prince Yadav 36 (England 43-1)
Prince Yadav yorks Jos Buttler with his very first ball! Sayonara!
5th over: England 43-0 (Salt 6, Buttler 36) Rana changes ends but Buttler don’t care, he kabblamoes his first ball over the leg side for SIX. Brutal. Buttler then snaps those wrists on a yorker and somehow gets it back down the ground for four. A single brings Salt on strike for the final ball of the over, he has a wild swish at the last ball and completely misses, throwing his head back and screaming some effing and jeffing up into the blue Nottingham skies. It’s not happening for him at the moment.
4th over: England 32-0 (Salt 6, Buttler 25) Axar Patel into the attack, beats Buttler with some extra bounce first ball. Slam! Buttler launches the next ball over the bowler’s head for SIX. Buttler picks up two through the covers and then swishes a pull through the vacant leg side for four. 13 off the over.
“Evening James, evening everyone. I’m looking forward to following the OBO today, in and around various other sporting events this evening. Fingers crossed for a good shoot out between Archer and The Kid later on!”
Girds loinded for this indeed Neil Withers (who thank the Lord is still…)
“Can I get a shout out to my Royal Society of Chemistry cricket club team mates? We’re currently propping up the Cambridge Business House League division four on nul points – sadly our sole win so far this season was a friendly!”
If you OBO it, the wins will come – I think it was Kevin Costner who said that?
3rd over: England 19-0 (Salt 6, Buttler 12) Buttler manages to get four over mid off with a miss hit off Arshdeep. The bowler follows up with two extremely wide yorkers, one of which is called a wide. Pressure building on England’s openers… Buttler gives it the full shoulder shimmy and slams a pull shot over midwicket for four. Twelve off the over in total.
2nd over: England 7-0 (Salt 5, Buttler 2) Harshit Rana starts with two dots and then Buttler gets England away to ironic cheers with a bunt for a single to mid on. Salt then collects their first boundary with a clip off his pads for four. Two singles down the ground make it seven off the second over. Quiet start for England.
1st over: England 0-0 (Salt 0, Buttler 0) Trent Bridge looks an absolute picture on this sunny July evening. Arshdeep starts accurately, pinning Salt on the crease for three dots in a row and then zeroing one onto his shin. It looked leg-sidey in realtime but India like it enough to send it upstairs… NOT OUT – it pitched outside leg.
Close again! Nearly a carbon copy with the fifth ball, Salt beaten for pace again, luckily for him it was swinging down past leg stump. BEATEN! What a first over from Arshdeep Singh and India, Salt nearly cleaned up with the final ball, it swings back and misses off stump by a gnat’s eyelash. A lesser spotted T20I maiden to begin proceedings.
Righto, here come the players. Jos Buttler and Phil Salt to open up for England with the bat. Arshdeep Singh for India with the ball. Let’s play!
Pre game reading:
Teams:
Vaibhav plays again (hooray) and Prince Yadav is in for Ravi Bishnoi. England are unchanged from Manchester.
England: Phil Salt, Jos Buttler (wk), Harry Brook (c), Jacob Bethell, Tom Banton, Sam Curran, Will Jacks, Liam Dawson, Adil Rashid, Jofra Archer, Josh Tongue
India: Abhishek Sharma, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Ishan Kishan (wk), Shreyas Iyer (c), Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Harshit Rana, Prince Yadav, Arshdeep Singh Varun Chakravarthy
India win the toss and choose to field
Ravi Shastri’s voice sonic booms around the entire midlands region as Shreyas Iyer and Harry Brook carry out the toss. Iyer calls the coin correctly and inserts England. Curious and Curioser. The pitch looks like a road and there are short boundaries either side, maybe India just fancy themselves to be able to chase whatever England set them?
Preamble
James Wallace
Hello and welcome to the third T20I between England and India from Trent Bridge. A win today will see England take an unassailable lead in the series and confine India to a second T20I series defeat in a row after they were rolled by Ireland immediately before this one.
Jacob Bethell took the plaudits in the last game at Old Trafford with a mightily impressive and Swiss Clock timed 76 off 46 balls to ice the run chase for England with an over and six wickets to spare.
India need a win to keep the series alive, all eyes on their starting XI to see if The Six hittin’ Kid – Vaibhav Sooryavanshi gets his second run out.
Play starts at 5.30pm, I’ll be back with the toss and teams very shortly.
