Key events
Taha Hashim’s report
SKY feels ‘relief’
Brydon Carse picks up several awards, even if he’s not going to get the big one. And then the Indian captain comes up. “A little bit of relief,” says Suryakumar Yadav, engagingly. He had been happy to keep England down to 160, but then “the way they bowled, it went to the wire”. The plan was to play the same way as in the last game. He liked the way his team “stitched the small partnerships”. That’s a great take. He looks as if he’d be fun to play for. As does Buttler, now he’s relinquished the gloves and is free to come up with funky fields and bowling changes.
The Player of the Match is, of course, Tilak Varma. Kate Mason, TNT’s switched-on anchor, reveals that he hasn’t been out in his last four T20 internationals. His scores have been 107 not out, 120 not out, 19 not out and now 72 not out. His career average in T20Is is 58,91! That’s the modern equivalent of 99.94.
Time for me to go and find a banana. Thanks for your company and correspondence, and long live Rutland.
“Great game,” says Buttler
“Great game,” reckons Jos Buttler. “Really exciting there at the end, all credit to Tilak for getting them over the line.”
Happy with the bowling performance? “Yeah, I thought we created lots of chances,” he says, suddenly turning into a struggling Premier League manager.
“Lots of positives. Jamie Smith playing on debut in the style he did was fantastic, Brydon Carse and the guys creating chances with the ball.”
Bothered by losing so many wickets to spin? “If they play three spinners, they’ll take wickets. We were more aggressive today and I was happy with that.”
England better, but not quite good enough
After the mismatch on Wednesday, this was a proper contest that made for hours of pulsating entertainment. England faltered against the spinners, as usual, but they kept going hard and bouncing back. It was two of their Test-match finds of 2024, Jamie Smith (on debut) and Brydon Carse, who led the way. But Carse got run out by Jofra Archer, who then went for more runs behind square than any bowler on record in this format. That’s the trouble with pace: it flies off the bat, too.
So England are 2-0 down with three to play, but their new white-ball boss, Brendon McCullum, can be more satisfied than disappointed. Jos Buttler was enterprising, Carse grabbed three wickets with his golden arm and Adil Rashid was masterly without getting much reward for it. England coped with all the Indian batters bar one, Tilak Varma, who won the match with an unbeaten 72 off 55 balls on a night when nobody else made 50.
It was going to take something special to deny Carse the Player of the Match award, and Tilak supplied it. He was watchful against the two spinners, wrathful against the four pacemen. And he’s only 22. India have bexcome alarmingly good at developing young talent.
Tilak wins the match for India!
19.2 overs: India 166-8 (Tilak 72, Bishnoi 9) Tilak swipes to leg and runs two (good save by Livingstone)… and then he cover-drives for four! And rounds off a fine victory. He looks like a rock star and he performed like one too, at both ends of the innings, despite falling mysteriously silent in the middle.
It’s going to be Overton, not Wood. And England, who flirted with a penalty for a slow over-rate, have been cleared by the third umpire.
Bishnoi not out!
19th over: India 160-8 (Tilak 66, Bishnoi 9) England review for LBW against Bishnoi. It takes an age, and it turns out to have pitched outside leg! What took them so long? India need six off the last over.
Bishnoi hits a four!
18.5 overs: India 160-8 (Tilak 66, Bishnoi 9) Bishnoi goes for the big hit, as Arshdeep did, and gets away with it – off the edge, all the way to the boundary. India need only six off seven balls: England are staring 0-2 in the face.
18.4 overs: India 156-8 (Tilak 66, Bishnoi 5) This time Tilak takes the single, after sweeping hard to deep square. India need 10 off eight balls.
18.3 overs: India 155-8 (Tilak 65, Bishnoi 5) Another dot, and then Tilak dabs to leg and steals two!
18.1 overs: India 153-8 (Tilak 63, Bishnoi 5) Buttler calls up Wood, no – Overton, no – Livingstone! You couldn’t make it up. From the first ball, Tilak turns down a single.
18th over: India 153-8 (Tilak 63, Bishnoi 5) I don’t believe it: Brydon Carse has bowled an over without taking a wicket. It goes for seven, which isn’t too bad, but four of them are a clip from Bishnoi, which wasn’t in the script. Advantage India: they need 13 from two overs. To win, England almost certainly have to take the last two wickets.
17.3 overs: India 146-8 (Tilak 62, Bishnoi 1) Two singles off the first three balls from Carse, and India have exacfty the same score as England at this stage. But they have a frontline batter still there.
17th over: India 146-8 (Tilak 62, Bishnoi 0) Rashid finishes with quietly fabulous figures, 4-0-14-1. But he did drop that vital catch. The game is like the Lord – it giveth and it taketh away.
WICKET!! Arshdeep c Archer b Rashid 6 (India 146-8)
Buttler gives Rashid a slip and a short leg, daring Arshdeep to go for the big hit. And he takes the bait! Slog-sweep, straight to Archer, who isn’t bothered by the battering he has just taken, or the run-out he was responsible for. Game back on?
16.5 overs: India 146-7 (Tilak 61, Arshdeep 6) Buttler, who is certainly being proactive, takes Livingstone off and brings Rashid back to finish his spell. Tilak just tries to see him off – dot, dot, dot, dot, single. That leaves Rashid with one ball, one chance to remove Arshdeep – and ….
Jofra Archer, who has bowled pretty well, finishes with 1-60 off his four overs. It could be worse: he could be Jimmy Anderson in Sydney in 2007.
Archer goes for 19 off an over!
16th over: India 145-7 (Tilak 60, Arshdeep 6) Tilak gets the message! And Buttler rues his decision to bring Archer back, as he goes for successive sixes. The first is a top edge over the keeper, but the second is a tennis shot over cover point. Arshdeep adds a four off the edge, and India are sudenly hot favourites again. They need 21 off 24 balls.
15th over: India 126-7 (Tilak 47, Arshdeep 0) Before that, Livingstone had been reverse-swept for four by Tilak – remember him? He has gone strangely quiet, though England have done well at denying him the strike. Now India need 40 off five overs and he will have to get most of them. He may be sparked up by the return of Jofra Archer, whose opening spell he tore to shreds.
WICKET! Axar c Duckett b Livingstone 2 (India 126-7)
Buttler’s gamble pays off! Livingstone lures Axar into a slog-sweep that goes straight into the safe hands of Ben Duckett at deep square.
Wow!
Jos Buttler turns to Liam Livingstone. Both batters are left-handed, so presumably he’s going to bowl off-breaks. Even if he only bowls one of his varieties, it could go either way.
14th over: India 119-6 (Tilak 41, Axar 1) Carse is turning into Ian Botham before our eyes. Or maybe Andrew Flintoff. He bowls a heavy ball, and now he bowls a skiddy one to get past Washington’s attempted dab. Carse has 3-22 off three overs and India need 47 off the last six overs. Say what you like about T20, it has just as much ebb and flow, pro rata, as red-ball cricket.
WICKET! Washington b Carse 26 (India 116-6)
Need a wicket? Send for Brydon.
Washington takes 18 off an over from Wood!
13th over: India 113-5 (Tilak 38, Washington 25) Buttler brings Wood back and almost gets a wicket. Wood bowls into the pitch, as the quicks have tended to, and Washington mistimes a pull. The ball goes straight into the usually safe hands of Adil Rashid at mid-on – and plops out again. When Wood bowls a no-ball, Washington has the gumption to flick it for six over long leg. He adds a spank over mid-off for four, and then another!
Rashid’s drop looks awfully expensive already. These two batters have seized the moment, adding 35 off only 24 balls. India are up with the rate and heading for another win if England can’t separate them sharpish.
12th over: India 95-5 (Tilak 36, Washington 10) Overton continues and gets his figures rather ruined, like a new hairdo in the rain. Washington clips him for a four and a two, and in between there’s a bouncer that sails over Phil Salt for five wides. Overton now has 2-0-14-1.
11th over: India 82-5 (Tilak 35, Washington 3) Rashid’s third over goes for only three singles as he goes deliciously slow. He hasn’t got a wicket, but he may have taken a couple at the other end.
“A very good afternoon to you Tim,” says Kim Thonger. “I have been protesting through (sorry) a rival broadsheet this week about government plans to absorb the very proud and efficiently run county of Rutland into the gargantuan monolith that is Leicestershire.” That’s a bit hard on Leics!
“If any OBOers have a hotline to Stuart Broad, who was schooled in Rutland by Frank Hayes, and I imagine would be supportive, might they give the good lad a nudge to put his headband on, spring into action and snarl at Angela Rayner who seems to be the ringleader of this brazen tomfoolery. Much obliged in advance.
“The county motto in Latin is Multum in Parvo. It translates to ‘much in little’ or ‘a great deal in a small space’. Much the same was said about Harry Pilling and Alvin Kallicharran, thought they’re not from Rutland of course.” Ha. I know Rutland well as my mum lives there. It’s a lovely place, and a very determined one. Ted Heath tried this ploy too: he won the battle, but Rutland won the war – every time the RUTLAND sign by the brook on the B664 was taken down, it seemed to reappear.
10th over: India 79-5 (Tilak 34, Washington 1) Jamie Overton didn’t get going at all in the first game, or the first innings of this one. But he grabbed a big wicket with his first ball and now he beats Tilak outside off. His figures are majestic: 1-0-1-1.
Drinks: England are the favourites!
We’re not quite at the halfway stage, and India need 88 off 65 balls. The run rate won’t bother them, but the wickets will. It’s all down to Tilak, who has followed a bad patch with a purple one … and then gone quiet again. The McCullum doctrine – attack, attack, attack – is working today.
WICKET! Hardik c Salt b Overton 7 (India 78-5)
Overton strikes with his first ball! It’s a bouncer, and Hardik can only waft at it. Salt takes the catch and England are on top.
9th over: India 78-4 (Tilak 34, Hardik 7) Rashid continues, bowling well, testing both batters. Tilak manages to cut him for four, but there’s a whiff of an edge about it.
8th over: India 71-4 (Tilak 29, Hardik 5) Hardik Pandya comes in and smites his first ball for four. But Carse is on a roll here – 31 off 17 balls, one catch, and two wickets for 16, with two overs still to come. Nobody has more wickets today, and only Buttler has more runs. Man of the Match, anyone?
WICKET! Jurel c sub (Rehan) b Carse 4 (India 66-4)
Dhruv Jurel has gone before he got going, unable to cope with Carse’s golden arm. He pulls a short ball straight to midwicket, where Rehan Ahmed, on for Mark Wood, takes a tricky low catch with so little fuss that most of the crowd don’t even realise it’s a wicket.
7th over: India 63-3 (Tilak 27, Jurel 3) Buttler turns to Adil Rashid, the only specialist spinner England have seen fit to pick. He starts beautifully, stopping the carnage, restricting Tilak to just one run off four balls.
6th over: India 59-3 (Tilak 26, Jurel 1) So the Powerplay ends, and – as in all the best cricket – it’s hard to say who’s winning. England will be delighted with the three wickets, but Tilak is now on fire, with 26 off 15 balls. For what it’s worth, England were 58-2 at this stage.
WICKET! Suryakumar b Carse 12 (India 58-3)
Brydon Carse sees his first ball hit for six. Does it bother him? It does not. He goes fast and straight and surgically removes SKY.
5th over: India 51-2 (Tilak 19, Suryakumar 12) Tilak Varma: an apology. I may have suggested that he struggled against high pace. Not in this over. Facing Archer, he cuts for four, then glances for six! And top-edges over the keeper for six more. Archer, who has bowled with his usual pace and guile, has 1-41 off three overs.
Are you old enough to remember Ted Dexter saying “fight fire with fire”? Well, 35 years later, it’s finally happening. And both these teams are at it.
4th over: India 34-2 (Tilak 2, Suryakumar 12) Wood is bowling rockets, 92-93 mph, and Tilak Varma can’t cope. But when he escapes with a squirt to third man, SKY simply uses Wood’s pace to flick over square leg for four more. And that ball was 95mph!
3rd over: India 28-2 (Tilak 1, Suryakumar 8) In comes India’s captain, with his team in a spot of trouble. He’ll take his time to get settled, surely … hang on, he’s played two delicious late cuts for four off his first three balls, from Archer. SKY has got his wits about him. And his wrists.
WICKET! Samson c Carse b Archer 5 (India 19-2)
One brings two! It’s rough justive for Archer, who twice came close to nabbing Abhishek in the first over. His bouncer tucks up Samson, who can only send a top edge sailing out to deep square. The catch is calmly held by Carse, showing there are no hard feelings for that run-out.
2nd over: India 17-1 (Samson 3, Tilak 1) That ball from Wood wasn’t just fast and straight – it was swinging back into the left-handed Abhishek, whose airy flick stood no chance. The McCullum doctrine worked a treat. I can’t remember Wood being trusted with the new ball before in a white-ball international.
WICKET!! Abhishek LBW b Wood 12 (India 15-1)
Not too high! What a great ball from Wood – it would have thudded into middle stump, below the bail, and it has removed India’s most dangerous hitter.
WICKET? Abhishek given LBW b Wood 12
Wood’s pace is too hot for Abhishek, but is this a bit high?
1st over: India 13-0 (Samson 1, Abhishek 12) Buttler hands the new ball to Jofra Archer, who owes England one after snuffing out Brydon Carse’s innings. This game may well hinge on Archer’s duel with Abhishek Sharma, so unstoppable on Wednesday. Archer starts by beating him outside off, but sees the next ball spooned over cover for four. Archer bounces back, beating him again, but Abhishek responds in kind, stepping away to slash him for four more, then upper-cutting for four more. What a player he is.
Another email! It’s Krish again. “The one great thing about the Madras crowd (I do not like the new name Chennai),” he writes, “is that it is a knowledgeable and a fair crowd. They applaud good play irrespective of who is playing. Not like the Gujarat crowd that never once clapped during that great Travis Head innings in last year’s World Cup final. But the problem here, for me, is the format. T20 is just slog slog slog. We have compromised quality to gather eyeballs. Gone are the finesse and the duels. It’s like a museum visitor who covers the Louvre in three hours.”
Three hours? Call me a lightweight, but that sounds like a decent stint to me. Yes, there are a lot of big hits, but we’ve seen plenty of finesse today, from Arshdeep’s changes of pace to Wood’s Rootesque dab for four. And one of the great things about T20 is the way it allows the slow bowlers to flourish. SKY used five spinners, gave them 14 overs and reaped his reward with six wickets. England, for their part, took 118 from those 14 overs, so it was a very good contest.
England finish on 165
20th over: England 165-9 (Archer 12, Wood 5) One of the great sights in world cricket is Mark Wood bowling. And not far behind it is Mark Wood batting. Facing Arshdeep, he opens his account with an artful dab for four. Who does he think he is, Joe Root? Archer adds a couple, running more wisely this time, and that is that.
India remain the favourites after another commanding performance in the field. But England have done quite a bit better, especially against the spinners – still getting out regularly, but not going gently into that good night. And it’s a good effort to keep going at eight an over when nobody reaches 50.
Buttler was outstanding again, if not for long, hitting 45 off balls. And Jamie Smith and Brydon Carse did get 50 between them – Smith 22 off only 12, in a dazzling cameo on debut, and Carse a cool calm 31 off 17. Those two have made sure that Buttler has something to defend when he leads his team out.
19th over: England 157-9 (Archer 8, Wood 0) Hardik Pandya, a forgotten man since the second over, returned for the penultimate one, which was neat but a bit hard on him. He did well, going for four singles off five balls, then removing Rashid.
WICKET! Rashid c Samson b Hardik 8 (England 157-9)
Rashid, tied down by Hardik, edges a lifter. That 172 suddenly looks a long way off.
18th over: England 153-8 (Archer 7, Rashid 8) After a few bits and bobs, Jofra gets the memo! Facing Arshdeep, he square-drives for four. And the spin onslaught has ended, so England may yet make it to that projected score of 172.
17th over: England 144-8 (Archer 2, Rashid 5) Adil Rashid, so calm with the bat as with the ball, faces his fellow leggie Bishnoi and cuts him for four. Now he just has to manage Jofra, who looks burdened with guilt and may need telling to take it out on the ball.
WICKET!! Carse run out 31 (England 137-8)
Jofra Archer, what have you done? You’ve extinguished England’s last hope! Going for a second run, then changing your mind… and not realising you had to sacrifice yourself.
16th over: England 136-7 (Carse 29) That was Varun’s last ball, so not a good moment to get out. But just before the wicket, Brydon Carse had confirmed the suspicion that he is a superb No 8. He greeted Varun with a six to long-on, the shot several England batters have played tonight. And unlike them he followed it with another six, flipped over fine leg.
WICKET! Overton b Varun 5 (England 136-7)
And another … as usual it’s the googly, and as so often it sneaks through the gate. But that was a handy partnership.