India take series lead as England fail to make most of lightning start

Jonny Bairstow and Jason Roy put on 135 in just 14.2 overs in reply to India’s 317 for 5, but after Roy was caught to give Prasidh Krishna his first international wicket, England were bowled out for 251

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India’s seamers fought back to claim a comfortable victory over England in the first ODI at Pune as the visitors’ batting collapsed in a heap after a lightning start.

Jonny Bairstow and Jason Roy put on 135 in just 14.2 overs in reply to India’s 317 for 5, but after Roy was caught to give Prasidh Krishna his first international wicket, England were bowled out for 251.

Prasidh Krishna claimed four wickets in his first ODI appearance, while Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Shardul Thakur – both so impressive in the T20I series – continued from where they left off in dismantling the tourists’ middle order.

Eoin Morgan, Moeen Ali, Sam Billings and Sam Curran all got starts, but none could pass 30 – even on a pitch that encouraged stroke-play from the off. When Roy and Bairstow – who made 94 off just 66 balls – were rocketing along, anything other than an England win seemed unlikely.

But after Thakur dismissed Bairstow, Morgan and Jos Buttler in the space of three overs, India took control.

Earlier, Shikhar Dhawan had returned to form with 98, while Virat Kohli also passed fifty as India built a strong platform. England then fought back strongly, however, with Mark Wood taking the wickets of Kohli and Shreyas Iyer and Ben Stokes had Hardik Pandya caught at slip to leave the hosts 205 for 5 with just 10 overs remaining.

But on his ODI debut, Krunal Pandya – Hardik’s older brother – counterattacked to make a half century on debut in conjunction with KL Rahul, who enjoyed his own revival after a poor T20I series.

At the halfway stage, England would still have been confident of chasing down their target, especially after Roy and Bairstow had fired, even with doubts surrounding the fitness of Morgan and Billings, both of whom suffered injuries in the field but were later passed fit to bat. Yet, as the innings wore on, India asserted their authority to take a series lead ahead.

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