This England team’s recent heatwave continued in Bristol, India wilting to lose their cool, the game and the series in what turned into another bizarrely one-sided encounter. Timid with the bat, poor in the field, error-prone with the ball and swift to accept the inevitably of defeat, this was a complete horror show from the world champions and a performance of complete dominance from Harry Brook’s burgeoning side, who won by nine wickets and will overtake their opponents as world No 1 if they win the final game of the series in Southampton on Saturday.
Brook says this team “can go to some special places”, and top of the rankings would certainly count as one. He talks often about adapting to conditions, as England have done impressively this year in a series in Sri Lanka, in the World Cup in that country and in India, and now also at home.
“We’re always striving to be the best team in the world,” he said. “One thing we really wanted to do is adapt to conditions and play what’s in front of us. And that’s what we’ve done really well over the past six or eight months.”
This is also India’s refrain, increasingly tinged with despair. “What works in India won’t necessarily work here,” said Ryan ten Doeschate, their assistant coach. “We’ve spoken so much about adaptability, but I think it’s got to the point now we actually have to unpack that suitcase. The challenge to the group has been to accept the fact that we are underachieving in foreign conditions and say, look, do we want to be a team that smashes 250 in India and looks great, or do we want to come to places like this, where things are slightly different … Do we want to be a team that actually excels in different conditions and do we have the mentality to make those adjustments?”
The big adjustment for England was that while two days earlier it was their bowlers who shredded India on their way to a 125-run win at Trent Bridge, this time – well as their bowlers performed to limit India to 159 – it was their batters, and one of them in particular. Brook hit 79 off 35, a marvellous innings, awe-inspiring at times, that made a side that lifted the World Cup just a few months ago – albeit a few of the key players behind that achievement were not involved here – look hopelessly flawed.
Chasing an obviously under-par total, England started slowly and awkwardly and Jos Buttler was dismissed early for eight. The former captain’s form is a genuine issue, and he has not scored an international half-century in this format since the Old Trafford runfest against South Africa last September, a run of 18 innings in which he has averaged just 15.16.
But his departure brought out his successor. Brook scooped his second ball for six, and from that moment there was no stopping him.
He and Phil Salt stayed together to finish the job, though Salt’s innings started poorly and after nine deliveries he was yet to get off the mark. To this India reacted not with ruthlessness but with charity, with no-balls in both the fourth and fifth overs presenting him with free hits and easing the pressure. Having scored none off nine, after 19 he was on 26, and after 34 he had a half-century.
Brook got there well before him, sending a huge six down the ground off Axar Patel to reach the mark off his 21st delivery. This came midway through a three-over period that turned a game that was probably going England’s way into one they could not lose: a required run rate that sat at precisely seven at the end of the seventh over was below four by the end of the 10th. In these three overs alone Brook hit eight boundaries including two sixes, and from there, Indian shoulders drooping in the evening sun, he continued until the 14th over, when he backed away and, off the back foot, hit Arshdeep Singh down the ground for his fourth, final and perhaps most sublime six. Three balls later it was over, Brook ending unbeaten on 79.
At the toss – like every other one in this series won by Shreyas Iyer – India’s captain promised that there would be no let-up in his side’s “fearless” approach. It was not caution that they threw to the wind, however, but the ball. Until Iyer himself came to the crease they seemed scarcely able to hit aerially without the ball going so high that by the time it returned to earth a fielder had settled under it with hands cupped. India’s was a puzzlingly passive display with the bat but Iyer ended it with 80 off 49, his second half-century of a series otherwise characterised only by calamity.
