England came crashing back down to Earth yesterday as the T20 side was given a solid beating by India in the first of three internationals. Due to the clash with the England v Colombia football match, I didn’t actually watch the Indian innings so my analysis and comments are based solely on England’s fairly tame batting performance.

video from the ECB

#Report & Analysis
England picked the same side that had beaten Australia in the one off T20 last week. Openers Jason Roy and Jos Buttler got England off to a reasonable start before Jason Roy was bowled by Umar Yadav while trying to hit across the line. It was a fairly ugly shot with Roy having survived 3 similar hoicks during his 20 ball innings. It was notable that while Buttler and Roy helped England to a respectable total of 54-1 during the powerplay that the Indian bowlers gave them very little width and generally bowled very few poor balls throughout the innings. This of course was in contrast to the recent white ball games against Australia where our batsman tended to be able to wait for the inevitable bad ball to come and the cash in without taking many risks.

However, it was the Indian spinners who really dominated England’s batsman. Depsite being taken for 16 off his first over, Chahal bowled his next 3 overs at just a run a ball while at the other end Kuldeep Yadav had the English batsman in all sorts of trouble. Poor Alex Hales couldn’t find the middle of the bat in a torturous 18 ball innings in which he made just 8 runs. When Kuldeep bowled him round his pads it was tempting to think that he had done England a favour as Hales looked fairly incapable of doing anything but soaking up precious deliveries. However, England’s middle order didn’t find it much easier with Bairstow and Root both stumped first ball having no idea which way the young chinaman bowler was turning it. Had Kohli been a little bolder and put a short leg in for Moeen Ali’s first ball then the spinner would almost certainly have claimed India’s first ever hatrick in T20 cricket. When Jos Buttler who once again looked in excellent form, became Kuldeep’s 5th wicket then any hope England had of hitting the 190+ that would have been needed to compete were all but over. A brief cameo from David Willey at least helped England to a respectable total but it was never likely to be enough.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts regarding the Australia series that England were not being tested by any high quality spin bowling. The solid start they got would likely have translated itself into 200+ against the Australian’s who had no means of wrestling back control from England’s powerful batting lineup. However, India have 2 young wrist spinners who can both spin the ball both ways and who both bowled with excellent control. Chahal seems happy to bowl in the powerplay, something which he regularly did under Kohli at RCB in the IPL this year. Conversely Kuldeep is more suited to bowling in the middle overs where he is encouraged to flight the ball a little more and seek to extract turn and bounce – he did this to excellent effect in yesterday’s game. Worryingly for England Kuldeep now has a T20 strikerate of 9.8! I don’t think I’ve ever seen an international bowler with a single figure strike rate. If England can’t come to grips with him soon then who knows how low it may go.

I have also mentioned in previous posts just how dry it is in England at the moment. It hasn’t rained for over 3 weeks across much of the country and it looks unlikely that this will change in the immediate future. The normally lush, well-watered lawns of England look more like the African savannah at the moment and that will only aid the Indian spinners. When you consider that India have the luxury of not picking Ashwin & Jadeja in the T20 side then England might well begin to worry about their chances in all forms of cricket this summer against a team that is primed to take advantage of dry, spinning pitches. Indeed, I would be highly surprised if Kuldeep wasn’t included in the Test side if he continues to torment England’s batsman in such a manner. With Hardik Pandya as a good all-round option and 3rd seamer it would mean India would be able to attack England with spin at both ends for the whole summer. If that is the case then some of these English batsman are going to have their techniques and mentality tested to the full. They failed on fast, bouncy wickets in Australia. If they fail on dry spinning wickets now then serious questions need to be asked about the direction and coaching of the side.