England lived up to their top-dog billing in one-day international cricket, trumping India in the final match of their series to take the honours 2-1.
According to ICC, it wasn’t a particularly strong batting performance from India to start with at Headingley, as they managed to put up just 256/8. The visitors picked up just two wickets after that as England romped home in 44.3 overs to take the trophy.
While the win gave Eoin Morgan’s men a fillip as they get going with their preparations for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, Virat Kohli admitted that India were ‘just not good enough’ in the game and had a lot of things to address before the marquee event.
Asked about areas of concern, Kohli, speaking to Sky Sports after the game on Tuesday 17 July, said “quite a few”.
“That’s what every side is looking for, they are looking for the best balance they can have possibly. All these sort of series and these sort of losses will tell us exactly what we need to work on and the things we need to rectify come World Cup time,” said Kohli, who had earlier top scored for India with a 72-ball 71 before being bowled by a ripper of a delivery from Adil Rashid.
The series had started well for India, with Kuldeep Yadav’s 6/25 and Rohit Sharma’s 137* taking them to an eight-wicket win in the first ODI. England rode on Joe Root’s century to make it 1-1, and then came the last ODI, when Rashid (3/49) and David Willey (3/40) set things up, and Root (100*) and Morgan (88*) completed the job.
From India’s point of view, Shikhar Dhawan (44) got some runs at the top and after Kohli, MS Dhoni (42) and the lower-order batsmen led by Shardul Thakur (22* in 13 balls) provided some impetus.
But their total wasn’t going to be big enough to Test a batting side like England.
“We were never on the mark as far as the runs on the board was concerned, we were 25-30 less,” said Kohli. “England were really clinical with the ball, bat and the field as well. We were just not good enough.
“They suffocated us through the middle overs really well. And the two spinners (Rashid and Moeen Ali) again joining hands and bowling 20 overs together … they really bowled well in partnerships. That is what you need as a side – you need bowlers to step up and bowl in partnerships. None of them got greedy, they just kept containing the runs and got the results eventually.”
The Indians now shift to their whites and play Essex in a four-day tour game in Chelmsford from 25 July before the first of five Tests starts at Edgbaston on 1 August.
