India vs England, 2018: Number Nuggets - Key differences between England and India in 2nd Test match
Rain, overcast conditions, poor team selection by India, poor shot selection by Indian batsmen and some luck favouring England. That's how you would define the second Test match between England and India at Lord's.
England captain, Joe Root, who won the toss, decided to bowl first. This was expected considering the overcast conditions as batting under such conditions would have been challenging.
Right from the toss result, the visitors ( Indian Team ) were on the back foot, and since then, they never managed to cause any trouble to the England team, be it batting or bowling.
To understand how the players of both the teams performed, let's deep-dive into the numbers and analyze what were the key differences between both the sides.
Considering that England batted only once, the batting comparison point would be England's 1st Innings vs India's both innings. Similarly, from the bowling perspective, it would be India's 1st Innings vs England's both Innings.
So, let's first begin with the openers.
Openers:
When it comes to overseas playing conditions, Murali Vijay has been one of the most trusted names. This is purely because of his technique and his ability to counter the swing early on in his innings.
However, in this match, he failed to even open the account in both the innings. Luck may not have favoured him as he got out to two awesome deliveries. But, as they say, luck favours the brave.
KL Rahul, who replaced Shikhar Dhawan as India's second opener did nothing well. He lasted could manage only 18 runs, and lasted just 30 deliveries.
Overall, the Indian openers failed to provide a good start. They scored a total of 18 runs in 43 balls at a poor average of 4.5.
England openers, on the other hand, had a decent outing. They began well against the Indian fast bowlers by scoring at a healthy strike rate of 68.1. They could manage a total of only 32 runs between them, but that was not bad considering the situation of the match.
Comparing the openers of both the team, we would say, England openers did a better job of handling the new ball as compared to Indian openers.
Secondly, let's have a look at how the middle order performed.