2nd ODI England v India at Indore 2008 - What lessons were learnt?

Monday, November 17, 2008 : England, Tests

England Lions England's performance here in the 2nd ODI between England and India at Indore was far better than the first ODI pasting, especially batting second on a difficult pitch. However you feel that with better team selection and strategy the result could have been closer. They were in a position to win the match on at least 3 occasions.

At 29-3 India were in trouble.
At the end of the batting power play with Flintoff and Pietersen well set, having thrashed almost 60 runs from the 5 power play overs.
Before the Indian spinners strangled the scoring rate England made a good start having lost only 1 wicket and milking the rusty bowling of RP Singh.

Ultimately England lost this match for 2 reasons. Firstly, the top order batting didn't score enough from the 17 overs of spin prior to the batting power play. Secondly the England bowling attack gave away too many runs again.

Top Order Batting

As previously discussed, England's top order needs more experience.

If England bat second then anyone who is prone to cramp should drop down the order. An opening bat should either build a long innings or have a dart for 20 overs. Not helped by Bell's early run out, Prior did reasonably well here but ran out of steam employing a runner when simply struggling with cramp. His overall low scoring rate, especially with Yuvraj and Harbajhan on, helped to build problems later in the innings. Credit goes to Shah for giving England a decent start at a respectable rate, but he too struggled when the spinners came on.

With the wicket of Prior, there was a strong argument for Collingwood to come in when the spinners are on and bowling well. Joining Pietersen at the wicket Collingwood would have been better suited to take singles and push for 2's. Flintoff batted fantastically well but only once the batting power play had started and the field was up. Collingwood would have been better for the long spell of spin from Yuvraj and Harbajhan.

There's no point in have 4 quality bats from 6-9 if the game has gone by the time they come in. Prior's strike rate and the poor run rate through the difficult first set of spin overs meant that England were generally 30+ runs behind where India were at the same point. Before England go out to bat they must have some targets for 10, 20, 30 overs. Although batting power plays can now alter this, we know you need to score around 50% of the total at the 30 over mark. England were at least 30+ runs down on this.

England let's have some flexibility in the batting order and not stay with Plan A when Plan A isn't working.

England gave away too many runs again Why?

These wickets don't suit the bang it in bowling of Harmison and to a much lesser extent Flintoff too. Anderson has only bowled a total of 14 overs in these first 2 matches. He hasn't taken early wickets and has proven to be relatively expensive (as usual even when bowling well). Other countries don't often open with a bowler who doesn't bowl his full quota on a regular basis.

England need to show some faith in playing a second spinner in Swann, probably at the expense of Anderson, and utilise Harmison at the start.

Should there be changes for Kanpur?