Captain Rohit Sharma brought his dwindling form back to life in the second ODI against England at the Barabati Stadium in Cuttack on Sunday, February 9. Struggling for runs for the last few months, mainly in Test cricket, Rohit got out cheaply in the series opener in Nagpur against England and all sorts of questions were being raised over his form but Rohit sprung back to life with a 76-ball century as India made a short work of the 305-run chase and hence, took a 2-0 unassailable lead in the three-match series.
While Rohit was the star with the bat with contributions from Shubman Gill at the top alongside him and Shreyas Iyer to follow, the bowling, especially the pace bowlers left a little more to be desired as England batters weakened the sharpness of the pace attack early on. Mohammed Shami, Hardik Pandya and the newbie Harshit Rana were all expensive in their first spells and even in the consequent ones, England played the faster bowlers with relative ease and the frustrations rose.
One of the incidents caught everyone’s attention during the 32nd over of England’s innings when England skipper Jos Buttler played it back to the bowler, Harshit in this case. Buttler was outside his crease momentarily and Harshit threw the ball but it was way outside the line of the stumps. There was no fielder at fine-leg and England got four runs without even attempting to run.
Harshit’s needless throw enraged skipper Rohit Sharma, who blurted out a mouthful to the bowler saying, “Dimag kidhar hai tera? (Have you lost your mind?” Harshit without looking at the furious captain walked back to his mark to bowl the next delivery. Rana conceded 62 runs in nine overs while taking a wicket while Mohammed Shami was expensive too, leaking 66 of them in just 7.5 overs.
Watch the video here:
India need their pace attack to fit and firing before the Champions Trophy and if Jasprit Bumrah indeed misses the ICC event, which looks likely, the Men in Blue might have to take stock of whom they want to take to Dubai for the short event.
