The Blues recorded their sixth successive win in the mega-event
Sports Desk
Lucknow: India continued their flawless form and beat England by 100 runs in the 29th match of the ICC World Cup 2023 at the Ekana Sports City, Lucknow, on Sunday.
The Blues recorded their sixth consecutive win in the mega event, having one foot in the tournament’s semi-final.
Jos Buttler’s men are on the verge of elimination from the mega event as after six matches, the defending champions could only register one win, which came against Bangladesh in Dharamshala.
England struggled in front of the deadly pace attack of India and were 39-4 with their top order batter — Jonny Bairstow, Dawid Malan, Joe Root and Ben Stokes — sent back to the pavilion with the latter two getting out for a duck.
The remaining damage was done by the spin attack of Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja as they shared three wickets between them.
Mohammad Shami was India’s definite pick of the bowlers as the pacer bowled a remarkable spell, taking four wickets for 22 runs and making it nearly impossible for the English batters to connect with the ball.
Jasprit Bumrah was the second highest wicket taker for India with three scalps to his name.
During the second innings, a record was made as for the first time in the history of the Cricket World Cup, the number three batters of both teams — Virat Kohli and Joe Root — lost their wickets without scoring a run.
Batting first, Indian batters struggled on the tricky wicket of Lucknow from the start as opener Shubman Gill lost his wicket after scoring nine runs, leaving his side 26-1 in four overs.
He was followed by Kohli and Shreyas Iyer as the English bowlers continued to push the home side’s batters and made them stand at 40-3 in 11.5 overs.
However, the Blues got a much-needed breakthrough courtesy of 91-run partnership between Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul.
After Rahul walked back to the pavilion, Suryakumar Yadav became Sharma’s partner during the innings.
However, Sharma couldn’t hold on to his wicket as he failed to read Adil Rashid’s googly and ended up playing a sloppy shot, eventually getting caught by Liam Livingstone after scoring crucial 87 runs, leaving his side at 164-5 in 36.5 overs.
For once it looked like the Blues would have to settle for a score under 200 runs but Yadav scored valuable 49 runs, missing his half-century just by a run as he was caught by Chris Woakes at deep back point.
India could score 229-9 in the allocated 50 overs.
The Blues will now face Sri Lanka on November 2 in Mumbai while the wounded English will play Australia on November 4 in Ahmedabad.
