England vs India, Flashback: 3 T20s played between England and India in England
The 1st T20I between England and India to be played in Old Trafford is less than a month away. Team India would want to start the long campaign on a winning note by winning the 3 match T20 series. The squad that has been selected for the T20 series boasts of strong batting and equally balanced bowling line-up, hence this would be an ideal opportunity for Team India to register their first ever T20 series victory against England in England.
In the 11 T20I’s played between both the teams across all venues, England have won 6 games to India’s 5. Surprisingly, India has played only 3 T20Is against England in England and lost all 3 of them. Hence, this presents a perfect opportunity for Virat Kohli and his men to make a mark in the T20 format against England.
Let us look at 3 T20 encounters between both the teams played in England.
#3 India fall short in a must-win encounter at Lords- 2009 T20 World Cup
This was during the group stage game between both the teams in the 2009 T20 World Cup held in England. The venue was the iconic Lord's Cricket Ground and on a pleasant afternoon Indian skipper MS Dhoni won the toss and elected to field first.
Team India got off to a great start as RP Singh cleaned up Luke Wright in the very second over. However, Ravi Bopara and skipper Kevin Pietersen resurrected the innings by stitching together a 71-run stand for the second wicket in just 55 deliveries. Just when both these two were running away from the game, Ravindra Jadeja dismissed both Bopara and Pietersen in two successive overs to bring India back into the game.
He first got through the defenses of Ravi Bopara (37) and then trapped Kevin Pietersen (46) LBW right in front of the stumps. At this juncture, England were 92-3 in 13 overs.
Owais Shah (12) and Dimitri Mascarenhas (25*) added 30 runs for the 4th wicket but England never had any momentum in the latter end of the innings. Harbhajan Singh picked up 3 wickets towards the end and England ended their innings at 153-7 in 20 overs.
Kevin Pietersen was the highest scorer for England with 46 of 27 deliveries. Harbhajan Singh was the pick of the bowlers with 3-30 in 4 overs, followed by Ravindra Jadeja who had figures of 2-26 in 4 overs.
In reply, India got off to a dreadful start losing Rohit Sharma (9) and Suresh Raina (2) inside 4 overs. At this juncture, India was struggling at 2-24 in 3.4 overs and to everyone’s surprise Ravindra Jadeja was promoted to number 4 to take the attack to the opposition.
Gautam Gambhir kept the scoreboard ticking from one end. However, Ravindra Jadeja found it hard to bat as he given a barrage of short deliveries throughout the innings by the English seamers. Stuart Broad, James Anderson and Ryan Sidebottom kept bouncing out Jadeja and the young left hander couldn’t rotate the strike.
Gambhir was dismissed caught at shot fine leg, trying to paddle sweep one of the bowling of Dimitri Mascarenhas for 26. Out walked Yuvraj Singh at number 5 and he started the innings with a 6 of the very first ball.
Jadeja was finally dismissed caught at long-on of the bowling of Graeme Swann for 25 of 35 balls. Yuvraj Singh was stumped few balls later and the hopes of an Indian win were diminishing. With 66 requiring of 36 deliveries, Yusuf Pathan and Dhoni struck few boundaries in between but it was too little too less as the required rate kept mounting over after over.
With 19 required off the last over, Ryan Sidebottom was handed over the responsibility by skipper Paul Collingwood. The first 3 balls yielded only 4 runs and with 15 to win off 3 balls, Yusuf Pathan struck one-handed six straight down the ground to bring the hopes alive of an Indian win.
9 to win off 2 balls and a perfect Yorker ensured Pathan could get only a single towards the long-on region. M.S Dhoni struck a boundary of the last ball towards deep-midwicket and India fell short by 3 runs.
Result: India ended up at 150-5 losing the game by 3 runs.
For his excellent bowling, Ryan Sidebottom was awarded the Man of the Match. His bowling figures read 4-0-31-2.
With this loss, India were knocked out of the 2009 T20 World cup and the experts criticized M.S Dhoni for sending Ravindra Jadeja at number 4, who played a slow knock of 25 from 35 balls, which turned out to be a match losing knock.