Cardiff, July 17 (). England won the second match of the ODI series played at Sophia Gardens by 4 wickets on Thursday. With this, the host team has leveled the three-match series 1-1. The hero of the English team’s victory was Joe Root, who scored unbeaten 99 runs. Root was chosen ‘Player of the Match’ for this brilliant innings.
After losing the five-match T20 series 0-4, India won the first match of the ODI series played in Birmingham by 6 wickets. Now the final match of the series will be played on July 19 in London.
The Indian team, which came to bat after losing the toss in Cardiff, could face only 44 overs. The visiting team was reduced to just 233 runs. Captain Shubhman Gill made a partnership of 44 runs with Rohit Sharma as the opening pair.
Gill returned to the pavilion after scoring 31 runs, after which Rohit Sharma added 60 runs with Virat Kohli for the second wicket. Rohit contributed 26 runs to the team’s account. By the score of 111, India also lost the third wicket in the form of Ishan Kishan (1).
From here, Shreyas Iyer made a partnership of 67 runs with Virat Kohli for the fourth wicket, taking the team to 178 runs, but after the break of this partnership, there was a fall of wickets. Kohli scored 65 runs in 66 balls with 8 fours, while Iyer was out after scoring 66 runs in 71 balls with 7 boundaries. Apart from these, Jasprit Bumrah scored unbeaten 20 runs in 13 balls. During this, four boundaries (3 sixes and 1 four) were hit in a single over.
For England, Joffra Archer and Gus Atkinson took 3 wickets each, while Saqib Mahmood took 2 wickets. Sam Curran and Will Jacques got 1-1 success.
In response, England won in 44.1 overs. England lost the wicket of Ben Duckett (0) on the very first ball of the innings. After this, Jacob Bethel (4) also returned to the pavilion in 3.4 overs. It seemed that from here Team India could take hold in the match, but the visiting team missed the opportunity.
From here Joe Root took charge. He made partnerships of 45 runs with captain Harry Brook (16), 45 runs with Sam Curran (26) and 31 runs with Jos Buttler (17). After this, Root along with Will Jacques (30) scored 72 runs in 86 balls for the sixth wicket and took the team to the threshold of victory. Root made an unbroken partnership of 38 runs for the seventh wicket with Gus Atkinson to give the team an easy victory.
Root remained unbeaten on 99 off 133 balls with 9 fours, while Atkinson remained unbeaten on 23 off 16 balls with 4 boundaries. For India, Gurnoor Brar took maximum 2 wickets, while Jasprit Bumrah, Prasidh Krishna, Shivam Dubey and Akshar Patel took 1 wicket each.
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