India, the most vibrant side in the tournament, won the Champions Trophy, depriving England of their first ODI title in a global event. In truth India won a T20 match, for that is what this showpiece event had been reduced to after rain had threatened to wash things out altogether.Chasing 130 to win, England came unstuck against the Indian spinners, hoist with their own petard on the sort of dry crumbly pitch that they may crave in the coming few months but which is meat and drink to India.
As long as Eoin Morgan, the Ice Man, and Ravi Bopara were together, compiling a stand of 64 from 55 balls for the fifth wicket, England were in with a chance and had begun a charge to the line, with 59 required from the last six overs. The pair took the score to 110 for four, midway through the 18th over, at which point Morgan, having made 33, chipped a catch off Ishant Sharma to midwicket. It set in train a painful collapse.
Bopara pulled the next ball to square leg, Jos Buttler was bowled first ball by Ravindra Jadeja and, when Tim Bresnan was comically run out following an lbw appeal, four wickets had fallen for three runs in eight balls. They were scuttled. Still, it came down to 15 from the final over, bowled by Ravi Ashwin, and six from the final ball, faced by James Tredwell.
As the ball bit and turned he was not within a foot of it and the Indian team and the thousands of their supporters began their celebrations. England had choked. The man of the match was Jadeja, whose 33 from 25 balls at the end of the Indian innings and particularly his six off Bresnan in the final over gave them a working total. With the addition of Suresh Raina’s offspin, the Indian spinners bowled 11 overs and took four for 54: England’s solitary spinner, Tredwell, took one for 25.
If the target had seemed a perfectly reasonable prospect, then account had to be taken of the overs to be bowled by the Indian spinners. Tredwell had found some turn during the Indian innings and the dry surface was not going to improve while England’s decision to field was based on the possibility of a Duckworth-Lewis run chase. In this it backfired: the reduced-overs match removed D-L and gave the advantage of batting first to India. Once Ashwin and Jadeja got their teeth into things, England’s approach faltered.
It began badly when Alastair Cook steered to slip and, although Jonathan Trott began briskly, he then misjudged Ashwin, bowling round the wicket, so that he overbalanced as he tried to flick a ball heading down the leg side.
The India captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, started to turn the screw, hounding the batsmen with close fielders, the ball spitting and the crowd ecstatic. Ian Bell managed one reverse-swept boundary but Joe Root top-edged a pull to give Ashwin a second wicket. There followed a moment of controversy when Bell played and missed at Jadeja’s left-arm spin and, although initially out of his ground, appeared to have his right foot back and down a fraction before Dhoni removed the bails. The replays appeared to bear this out but to almost universal surprise the third umpire, Bruce Oxenford, had seen otherwise. It was an astonishing decision: who knows the cost to England?
Earlier Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan had made a cautious start against Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad. The first boundary came in the third over when Sharma edged Anderson through the second slip area and then Dhawan benefited from four overthrows after Buttler could only deflect Bresnan’s throw beyond Morgan’s reach.
It was Broad who made the first inroad when Sharma drove loosely and the ball came between bat and pad to take the top of off stump. The first of two rain-breaks came when Broad was into his third over and to his first ball after the restart, short and wide of off stump, Dhawan produced an upper-cut, played with both feet off the ground, that sent the ball high over third man for six. It was the introduction of Bopara to bowl the ninth over that set India back. His second ball was cleverly held back and Dhawan, deceived, could only toe-end it to extra cover. His 31 was his lowest score of the tournament.
Bopara then removed Raina, caught at mid-on, and the key wicket of Dhoni, taken at third man by Tredwell, without scoring to complete a double-wicket maiden. It was 44 ODI innings ago that Dhoni last made a duck. In the previous over Tredwell had claimed Dinesh Karthik, who top-edged a sweep to backward square-leg. At 66 for five, after 13 overs, India were in trouble. The boundaries had dried up and the England bowlers were controlling things.
Virat Kohli decided to go on the attack and began by ruining Bopara’s excellent figures with a thunderous cover-driven boundary and another swept to square leg: 12 came from the over. He and Jadeja began to hare between the wickets. By the time India took their two-over batting powerplay, 30 runs had come from the previous three overs and another 20 came from those, during which Kohli was dropped by Trott at backward point off Broad. Kohli celebrated by pulling the same bowler high into the stands for six. Jadeja then hit Anderson over extra cover for another, before Kohli was well caught at long-off for 43, from 34 balls. There was time for Jadeja to clump one further six over midwicket to end the innings.
(Source: Guardian.com)
