Tweet
20 overs England 157 for 6 (Hales 56, Yuvraj 3-19) v India
Alex Hales needed only 26 balls for his half-century © BCCI
Yuvraj Singh's decade-long attempt to secure a permanent spot in the Test team may have been thwarted once again this month, but he showed why he is indispensable in limited-overs formats with a game-changing spell of left-arm spin against England.
In the first international match at the Subrata Roy Stadium in Pune, England had muscled 68 in seven overs as Alex Hales and Luke Wright rattled along at more than 10 an over for the second wicket. Hales began with two powerful pulls for four in the first over, and then showed off his straight-hitting to sprint to a 26-ball half-century, his fourth for England. Unlike Hales, Wright hadn't spent time in India with the England Performance Programme squad but he too played a fluent boundary-filled innings, not flustered by the change in conditions from the Big Bash League in Australia.
Yuvraj's introduction in the ninth over transformed the game. He was the seventh bowler MS Dhoni turned to as India desperately searched for ways to stall the runs, and he immediately delivered. Five of the previous six overs had been punished for 10 runs or more, but Yuvraj in his first gave away just five singles. In his next, he had Luke Wright caught at long-off. In his third, Hales was dropped by Dhoni, then bowled before England captain Eoin Morgan gave long-on a catch. The triple-blow sucked out the momentum from the innings, and by the end of his spell the run-rate was down to around seven-and-a-half.
Ashok Dinda, leading India's pace attack though he himself is fairly new to international cricket, delivered the perfect penultimate over, taking two wickets and giving away only two runs. Either side of that though, Dhoni's go-to bowler in Twenty20s, R Ashwin, and debutant fast bowler Parvinder Awana were hit for two sixes in an over each as Jos Buttler's unbeaten 33 lifted England to 157. That was a score India seemed happy to concede on a good track in a stadium with short boundaries.
Alex Hales needed only 26 balls for his half-century © BCCI
Yuvraj Singh's decade-long attempt to secure a permanent spot in the Test team may have been thwarted once again this month, but he showed why he is indispensable in limited-overs formats with a game-changing spell of left-arm spin against England.
In the first international match at the Subrata Roy Stadium in Pune, England had muscled 68 in seven overs as Alex Hales and Luke Wright rattled along at more than 10 an over for the second wicket. Hales began with two powerful pulls for four in the first over, and then showed off his straight-hitting to sprint to a 26-ball half-century, his fourth for England. Unlike Hales, Wright hadn't spent time in India with the England Performance Programme squad but he too played a fluent boundary-filled innings, not flustered by the change in conditions from the Big Bash League in Australia.
Yuvraj's introduction in the ninth over transformed the game. He was the seventh bowler MS Dhoni turned to as India desperately searched for ways to stall the runs, and he immediately delivered. Five of the previous six overs had been punished for 10 runs or more, but Yuvraj in his first gave away just five singles. In his next, he had Luke Wright caught at long-off. In his third, Hales was dropped by Dhoni, then bowled before England captain Eoin Morgan gave long-on a catch. The triple-blow sucked out the momentum from the innings, and by the end of his spell the run-rate was down to around seven-and-a-half.
Ashok Dinda, leading India's pace attack though he himself is fairly new to international cricket, delivered the perfect penultimate over, taking two wickets and giving away only two runs. Either side of that though, Dhoni's go-to bowler in Twenty20s, R Ashwin, and debutant fast bowler Parvinder Awana were hit for two sixes in an over each as Jos Buttler's unbeaten 33 lifted England to 157. That was a score India seemed happy to concede on a good track in a stadium with short boundaries.