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India Vs England Series Review T20I & ODI 2021: India’s Young Brigade Strikes Once Again

Mar 29, 2021 | India, Previews and Reviews

India Vs England Series Review. The most anticipated limited overs series of the year—#1 England vs #2 India.

Did the series live up to the hype? Not quite. Except the Sam Curran game, none of the games went down to the wire, but there were plenty of talking points regardless:

  • 40 is the new 50 feat Jason Roy
  • Debutants Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Liam Livingstone, & Prasidh Krishna storm the international arena
  • Shardul Thakur is the new Liam Plunkett
  • The power game of Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler, & Ben Stokes is second to none
  • Umpiring – Nitin Menon’s brilliance & soft signals’ ignorance

Here are the series stats, video highlights, winners & losers, and emerging players. Read till the end for World T20I Squad Predictions and some Dinesh Karthik content.

Also Read: India Vs England Test Series Review

Stats, Scorecards & Video Highlights – India Vs England

T20I Series: India Win 3-2

  1. England won by 8 wickets *Jofra Archer
  2. India won by 7 wickets *Ishan Kishan
  3. England won by 8 wickets *Jos Buttler
  4. India won by 8 runs *Suryakumar Yadav
  5. India won by 36 runs *Bhuvneshwar Kumar

* Player of Match

T20I Series Stats

Player of SeriesIndia
Virat Kohli
England
Most RunsVirat Kohli – 231 runs
(best of 80*, 50s -3, 147.13 SR)
Jos Buttler – 172 runs
(best of 83*, 50s -2, 147.00 SR)
Most WicketsShardul Thakur – 8 wickets
(best of 3/42, 9.69 economy)
Jofra Archer – 7 wickets
(best of 4/33, 7.75 economy)
India Vs England Series 2021 – T20I Stats

ODI Series: India Win 2-1

  1. India won by 66 runs *Shikhar Dhawan
  2. England won by 6 wickets *Jonny Bairstow
  3. India won by 7 runs *Sam Curran

* Player of Match

ODI Series Stats

Player of SeriesIndiaEngland
Jonny Bairstow
Most RunsKL Rahul – 177 runs
(best of 108, 100-1, 50-1, 88.50 average, 101.14 SR)
Jonny Bairstow – 219 runs
(best of 124, 100-1, 50s-1, 73.00 average, 120.32 SR)
Most WicketsShardul Thakur – 7 wickets
(best of 4/67, 22.57 average, 6.72 economy)
Mark Wood – 5 wickets
(best of 3/34, 21.80 average, 6.41 economy)
India Vs England Series 2021 – ODI Stats

The Highlights

India

  • The highest wicket-taker across both the ODIs & T20Is from both sides, Shardul Thakur has been a revelation over the last few months. After his match-winning contribution at the Gabba, he has contributed in almost every match, either as a power hitter down the order or with important wickets. Only fitting that Ajit Agarkar (with 288 wickets on his name) was on-commentary during some of Thakur’s spells.
  • India’s young brigade—Ishan Kishan began with a solid 56, Suryakumar Yadav 57 (with one-legged six for first shot), and Krunal Pandya scored India’s fastest debutant 50. The lanky Prasidh Krishna was my pick of the lot. Expensive in his first spells but came back with figures of 4/54 & 2/58. Great spirit! Add Shreyas Iyer’s stable performances, Shikhar Dhawan’s return to form in the ODIs, & Virat Kohli’s consistency, this Indian line up looks really solid. Even without Kohli’s elusive 71st ton.
  • The old Bhuvneshwar Kumar is back. Bhuvi’s economy of 4.65 in a high scoring series & KL Rahul’s 62* & 108 in the ODIs (after 0,0,1, 14 in the T20Is) hold well for India. Maybe KL in the middle order is the way to go with Kohli-Rohit opening in the T20Is.
  • Middle overs bowling is a concern for India. Since the break of Kuldeep-Chahal, neither have been convincing. Time for Kuldeep to go back to first class cricket or a county cricket stint. R Ashwin limited overs comeback?

Also Read: Top 75 Players in India, India’s Depth: A Blessing or a Curse?

England

  • Jonny Bairstow & Jason Roy were the reason behind England’s rise & 2019 WC victory, but both had questions over the place over the last few months.
    • Bairstow, the Test batsman, had scores of 0,0, 28 & 0.
    • Bairstow, the limited overs batsman, is something else. First full over – 2 sixes to Chahal. Regained confidence in the T20I and came to the fore in the ODIs with 94 & 124. Except for the ill-timed shot in the first ODI, good signs for England
    • Roy’s the new Root: 49, 46, 9, 40, 0, 46, 55, & 14. After a poor 2020, finally good to have the old Roy back, but needs to convert more often.
  • Mark Wood was my player of the series based on his commitment. The highest wicket taker for England in the ODIs, he bowled his heart out. In the last ODI, he was visibly under the weather but kept bowling at 141+ kph. To add the cherry to the cake, he stayed in the game in that 60 (61) partnership with Sam Curran.
  • Let us talk about the player who was not here (and no, I am not talking about Alex Hales, whose window for return may have opened). Liam Plunkett has been sorely missed since he was dumped post World Cup victory. Tom Curran & Chris Jordan have been expensive across both the formats, and Adil Rashid has only been successful in his new Powerplay position. England can definitely chase 350+, but without Plunkett, they are consistently giving away that many runs.

Also Read: Top 50 Players in England, Why the World Needs Sam Curran?

Squad Predictions – World T20 World Cup

Here is my World T20 XI for India as of now:

India Squad

  1. Virat Kohli*, 2. Rohit Sharma/Ishan Kishan, 3. Suryakumar Yadav/Shreyas Iyer, 4. KL Rahul, 5. Rishabh Pant (WK), 6. Hardik Pandya, 7. Ravindra Jadeja, 8. Washington Sundar, 9. Shardul Thakur, 10. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 11. Jasprit Bumrah/ T Natarajan

Squad: 12. Rahul Chahar/ Yuzvendra Chahal, 13. Shreyas Iyer, 14. Mohammad Shami, 15. Deepak Chahar, 16. Krunal Pandya/ Axar Patel

Wildcards: Navdeep Saini/Mohammad Siraj/ Prasidh Krishna, Sanju Samson, Rahul Tewatia/ Varun Chakravarthy, Manish Pandey/Shikhar Dhawan, Dinesh Karthik

England Squad

  1. Jason Roy, 2. Jos Buttler (WK), 3. Dawid Malan, 4. Jonny Bairstow, 5. Eoin Morgan*, 6. Ben Stokes, 7. Sam Curran, 8. Moeen Ali, 9. Jofra Archer, 10. Adil Rashid, 11. Mark Wood

Squad: 12. Sam Billings, 13. Liam Livingstone, 14. Tom Curran/Chris Jordan/Saqib Mahmood/Reece Topley, 15. Joe Root/Joe Denly

Wildcards: Chris Woakes, Alex Hales, Tom Banton, James Vince, Liam Dawson, Matt Parkinson, Lewis Gregory, Liam Plunkett

Moments of the Series

  • Sam Curran‘s 95* in the final game was the highlight of the series. The make things happen guy had not done much of note for the entire series, but showed his worth in the final ODI dismissing the dangerous Rishabh Pant and displaying his finishing game.

Oh and by the way, my tweet right before the Pant wicket. All he needed was this tweet. You’re welcome Sam Curran fans.

The Awards: Emerging Players & Surprise Package

  • People’s Choice Award: Dinesh Karthik’s analysis & shirts on Sky Sports
  • The Umpiring Award: Nitin Menon’s umpiring received wide social media praise.
  • The Umpiring Anti-Award: Soft-signal (we know it is bad when this rule is dropped from the IPL). This rule received strong criticism after Suryakumar Yadav’s catch by Dawid Malan was deemed out on soft signal (although camera angles were inconclusive).
India England
Emerging PlayersKohli-Rohit T20I opening

Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Prasidh Krishna
Liam Livingstone
Surprise Package‘Intent’Sam Curran, the finisher
Broken Cricket DreamShreyas Iyer, Kuldeep YadavEoin Morgan (injured), Tom Curran & Chris Jordan’s economy rate
India Vs England Series 2021 – Awards

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Where Do They Go From Here?

The two of the most anticipated major tournaments of recent times coming up—and no, I am not talking about the 2020 & 2021 Men’s World T20 World Cup.

I am talking about IPL 2021 & The Hundred. Jofra Archer will miss the IPL to have surgery & recover from injury on his right hand.

New Zealand tour England for two Tests in June followed by India Vs New Zealand for the World Test Championship final. Oh and if you did not have enough of watching these two teams, India tour England for 5 Tests in August-September.

Copyright (2021: 3/29/2021)– @Nitesh Mathur, aka Nit-X – bcd@brokokencricketdreams.com

Image Courtesy: Virat KohliNAPARAZZI, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Nitesh Mathur

2 Comments

  1. Tom

    England certainly miss a Liam Plunket type in the middle overs and their death bowling is not particularly great either. I guess when they get back to full strength Wood will be used more during the middle overs in the enforcer type role.

    But for his nearly match winning innings, England seemed to be carrying Sam Curran particularly as a bowler. Did England just leave Chris Woakes under quarantine in the hotel in Sri Lanka and forget about him? I know he’s seen as a Duke ball specialist in Test cricket but his record in the IPL is pretty good

    Reply
    • Nit-X

      Really good observation that! A full strength Wood could do the enforcer job like Plunkett. With Archer (and hopefully Woakes) at the top, all they need is a refined Chris Jordan at the death.

      The bit about Chris Woakes cracked me up haha! Thanks Tom!

      Reply

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