Cricket: England stalled by too many false starts

ENGLAND fell to a second successive one-day international trouncing after their batsmen let them down – and Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir made them pay – at the Feroz Shah Kotla.

Kohli (112no) and Gambhir (84no) confirmed England’s 237 all out was well below par as India coasted to an eight-wicket victory with embarrassing ease and more than 13 overs to spare.

Delhi-born Kohli was especially impressive in an 89-ball hundred containing 14 fours in an unbroken stand of 209. Gambhir was no slouch either, with ten fours from 90 balls, as the pair dominated an attack who had been set an evidently impossible task.

England are therefore 2-0 down with three matches left in a series already threatening to go the way of two previous limited-overs attempts in this country which resulted in a combined scoreline of 10-1 to India in 2006 and 2008.

Tim Bresnan did his best to revive England’s prospects by shifting both openers early in India’s otherwise near seamless run chase, and Steven Finn also bowled fast and well with little luck in his new-ball spell from the Tata end.

But the damage was done before England got the ball in their hands. Kevin Pietersen top-scored among five who bettered 30 but could not muster a half-century between them on a pitch of reasonable pace but with some unpredictable bounce.

R Vinay Kumar (four for 30) did the most damage to an England innings which ended with Jade Dernbach’s appropriately hapless run-out after 48.1 overs.

They twice lost two wickets for no run, starting with ducks for both openers, and were therefore never in position to take proper advantage of a lightning-quick outfield.

Pietersen and Jonathan Trott had to start again in the second over – after Alastair Cook and Craig Kieswetter had departed scoreless; then Jonny Bairstow and Samit Patel did not have a run between them in the 26th, at the start of a resourceful stand of 86, which lasted 16 overs. Yet when they too went in successive overs, Patel undone by a quick ball from Yadav that kept low and Bairstow well held just inside the long-off boundary by Kohli off Jadeja, it was clear that England were going to have to bowl a lot batter than they had batted.

They did, but were simply too far behind the game after such a flawed attempt to set a worthwhile total. Bresnan thought momentarily he had Parthiv Patel for 10, only for Graeme Swann to spill the second-slip chance away to his left. But Patel managed only two more before Cook clung on to a head-high chance at mid-on as Bresnan got his man after all.

The Yorkshire seamer stuck to his task again, as Ajinkya Rahane counted six with a slightly-miscued hook just wide of Dernbach at long-leg, and then hit the very next ball straight into the same fielder’s hands. But that was as good as it got for England.