India control below par chase in 1st ODI in Southampton

It’s around this time of year that school children have the exciting day where you get to experience your new classroom, teacher and classmates ahead of September. England had a similar inset day today, getting to experience what the Autumn term will look like for them: facing India in the World Cup. Their experience? A lot less joyous than eight-year-olds learning their topic in the new year is Ancient Egypt.  

Credit: BCCI

England won the toss, realistically a one in two chance, but a streak England’s skippers have managed to keep so far this summer.

With England opting to bat first, Kranti Goud was the instigator behind the dismissal of Tammy Beaumont and Amy Jones, the pair that both scored back-to-back centuries against the West Indies at the start of the summer. Scoring five and one respectively, the platform England’s middle order had used to push to match winning totals was suddenly absent.

A vital 106 run partnership between Alice Davidson-Richards and birthday girl Sophia Dunkley, who totalled 83, enabled England to push to 158/6. Certainly subpar but not humiliating.

 Lacklustre strike rates were not limited to the England side with India’s Pratika Rawal and Harleen Deol both striking at 70.59 and 61.36 respectively. Even Harmanpreet Kaur could only manage 17 from 26, enduring 14 dot balls.

One of England’s big voids is the lack of all-rounder. Naturally, this does impact batting, particularly the middle order but bowling options have also been affected. Traditionally, Nat Sciver-Brunt has been labelled as the best all-rounder in the world, she hasn’t bowled in a competitive match since the Ashes and it doesn’t seem to be an option in the near future. At times, Alice Capsey has been called on to turn her arm over, able to provide wickets and just a change of bowling.

However, without Capsey in the XI and Sciver-Brunt still not bowling, Charlotte Edwards’ solution was Emma Lamb. Although Lamb has bowled often for Lancashire as an off spinning option, the last time she bowled in a county game was a month ago, taking one wicket for eight against Surrey where she only bowed one over.

In this game, Lamb did her job. Lamb is not the problem by any stretch, it’s the lack of a true all-rounder which is where a significant disparity lies between England and other international sides.

As seagulls flocked towards the Hampshire Bowl, England exhausted all of Sophie Ecclestone’s overs, the left arm spinner finishing with figures of 1/34. The game dragged to its inevitable ending of victory for India by 4 wickets, despite efforts to dismiss Deepti Sharma – perhaps England didn’t utilise all possible options…