India vs England 2016/17 ODI Review: Five Lessons Learnt By England

Jan 24, 2017 at 4:25 PM

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India vs England 2016/17 ODI Review: Five Lessons Learnt By England

It was not the way in which England would have liked to kick off their limited-overs series against India. After coming close to a win in the first ODI, they lost the game, thanks to centuries from Kedar Jadhav and Virat Kohli. Next up was the Cuttack game, which the Indian team won quite comfortably and it was the final game when the visitors had a taste of a win.

There were a lot of things which England will have to learn quickly, in order to perform well in the T20Is. Let’s take a look at them one by one: 

Failed opening stands – Just like the Indian team, England too had an issue with the opening pair as in two out of three matches, the openers failed to provide a good start to the team, which mounted pressure on batsmen to come. Though England made a score in excess of 300 across all three ODIs, but if the openers would have batted for 10 more overs, then the result could have been different.

Despite Jason Roy scoring half-centuries in all three games, England failed to seal crucial moments. He’ll have to learn the art of converting 60s, 70s to big centuries so as to provide a competitive advantage to his team in long run.

Lack of a front-line spinner – A country touring India and spinners bowling just 25 overs, out of almost 150 overs. A strange number this but England team did the same, which is one of the reasons why they failed to succeed in the ODI series.

This was the case with England as after Adil Rashid went for runs in the first ODI, England skipper Eoin Morgan dropped the leg-spinner, relying mainly upon Moeen Ali for the spin duties. This was the biggest weakness for them as though Indian spinners too just collected just seven wickets but they were able to slow down run-rate a bit in the middle overs of the game. If England would have had a reliable spinner in their department as well, then this could have helped them change the result in their favour. 

Middle-order failure – Apart from the first ODI of the series, the England middle-order failed to keep the pace provided by the preceding batsmen as in the last two ODIs, England lost its third, fourth and fifth wicket in a matter of 78 and 43 runs respectively. This was probably the biggest issue with them as if the middle-order could have stretched the good start provided to them, then we might have seen England touching the 400-run mark as well but this didn’t prove to be the case. 

Over-reliance on Jason Roy and Joe Root – The success of the team heavily relied upon the form and the start provided by Jason Roy and Joe Root. Though, rest of the batsmen too played a great role but there was an over-reliance on these two players, that somehow worked against England as if the other batsmen, especially middle order, would have stepped up the ranks, then the team could have won the lost games as well.

The case was opposite with the Indian team as despite openers failing in all three-games, the middle-order stood up to score runs when it mattered the most.  It was probably the best series for Indian batsmen in past few years, where middle-order stood up in each and every game.

Morgan’s Captaincy – Eoin Morgan’s captaincy came under scanner during the series as he made some arbitrary decisions, which wrote the script for England team’s loss. Whether dropping Adil Rashid to keeping Sam Billings at bay, Morgan could not really get the feel of the series.

Even in Kolkata, it were the gaffes from former skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Virat Kohli that helped England run away with a win at the end of the day to salvage some pride.

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