Milestone reached by Yorkshire's Adil Rashid but sorry England spanked again
ADIL RASHID’s 400th wicket for England was a beauty, a drifting, dipping leg-spinner which pitched on leg and middle, drew the batsman forward and feathered the outside edge before nestling sweetly in the wicketkeeper’s gloves.
Rashid is not a man given to outpourings of emotion, but his beaming smile said it all. He clenched both fists in triumph, ran down the pitch and high-fived the catcher, Phil Salt, slapping his right hand into his team-mate’s left glove before others converged to offer congratulation.
It was not the 400-wicket milestone that they were all celebrating; indeed, it is unlikely that the Yorkshireman himself was even aware of it as he bagged his 209th one-day international victim to go with 131 in T20 internationals and 60 in Tests.
Rather, it was the fact that the batsman dismissed was Virat Kohli, one of the greatest players of the age, a man whose rueful expression as he left the field indicated that the ball had been just too good for him, even though he had 52 runs in the bank and had been batting serenely in the afternoon sunshine.
On a day when England were hammered by 142 runs to lose the one-day international series 3-0, following a 4-1 defeat in the T20 campaign, Rashid – who finished with 4-64 from his 10 overs – was the one bright spark, a beacon amid the prevailing gloom.
It was the fifth time that he had dismissed Kohli in ODIs, a figure bettered only by Tim Southee (seven) and Ravi Rampaul (six), and the 11th time across all international formats, equalling the mark of Southee and Australia’s Josh Hazlewood.
On Monday, Rashid will turn 37, a wizard whose powers show no sign of abating. If England are to make any impact at the Champions Trophy that starts next week, it is a fair bet that the little maestro will have something to do with it, although it is difficult to see England going deep in that competition on the evidence of what we have seen on this tour.
After Jos Buttler won his fifth successive toss of the trip (sadly for himself and England, pretty much the only thing that they have won), India scored 356 from their 50 overs, losing their final wicket to the last delivery.
It was a total founded on four main contributions, Shubman Gill’s 112, Shreyas Iyer’s 78, Kohli’s half-century and 40 from wicketkeeper KL Rahul.
England even had the benefit of dismissing Rohit Sharma cheaply, the India captain having whacked a century in Cuttack but undone this time when the probing Mark Wood found his outside edge with the day’s seventh ball.
But Gill and Kohli shared 116 for the second wicket from 107 deliveries, then Gill and Shreyas 104 for the third from 93, at which point India were 226-3 in the 35th over and a 400 total was potentially possible.
Having removed the “king” with a glorious ball, Rashid’s wicket of Gill was heavily gift-wrapped, the 25-year-old right-hander - whose 50th ODI this was, and his seventh hundred - bowled trying what could only be described as a standing sweep to a full-length ball.
There was another hundred out there for Gill had he wanted, but it was still a wonderful innings, made from 102 balls with 14 fours and three sixes, characterised by positive footwork and lovely, serene swings of the blade.
Shreyas was another victim of Rashid - another poor shot as he tried a leg-glance and was caught behind. Rashid’s fourth and final wicket was another peach, a leg-break opening up Hardik Pandya and striking the top of off stump after the previous two balls had been bludgeoned for six.
Those wickets kept India in check just sufficiently to ensure that the chase would be difficult as opposed to impossible.
It was a target given a flying start by Phil Salt and Ben Duckett, who blazed 60 runs from the first six overs.
Then, would you Adam and Eve it, familiar giveaways ensued from both men, Duckett (struggling, in fairness, with a left thigh injury) skying Arshdeep Singh to mid-off, and Salt lobbing the same man tamely to point.
Tom Banton, on his return to the ODI team after four-and-a-half years, played a couple of remarkable reverse hits for six, but was perhaps a little too desperate to do well when he edged behind and then burned a review for reasons unknown.
Joe Root, Buttler, and Harry Brook played on - as did Rashid after Liam Livingstone was stumped. Gus Atkinson, who suffered a tough day with the ball, enjoyed himself at the end, flaying the joint top-score of 38 from 19 balls, but when he missed one from Axar Patel the game was up and England had been bowled out for 214 inside 35 overs.
Afterwards, Buttler did his best to put a brave face on things, paying tribute to India and admitting that his team had been thoroughly outclassed.
It was the same script that he has been reading from for the past few weeks, a captain unable to influence, with bat or tactics, the course of events.