England’s preparations for the World Cup suffered a humiliating setback with a comprehensive defeat in the fourth one-day international against India at Edgbaston. Their nine-wicket victory was achieved with 19.3 overs remaining and secures their series triumph with a match to spare, at Headingley Carnegie on Friday.
Having dismissed England for a lowly 206 after winning the toss, India raced to their victory target with Ajinkya Rahane hitting 106 off 100 balls, including ten fours and four sixes, sharing a 183-run opening stand with Shikhar Dhawan, who finished unbeaten on 97 from 132 balls and sealed India’s emphatic triumph with a six down the ground off Harry Gurney.
No England bowler could stem the flow. James Anderson went at more than six runs an over, Chris Woakes at tens and Gurney at close to eight.
Rahane fell only 24 runs away from victory, slapping a full toss from Gurney, Nottinghamshire’s left-arm seamer, to cover, which prevented England from suffering only their sixth ten-wicket defeat in 625 one-day internationals, and their first on home soil. It was also the fifth one-day series defeat in a row for England under Alastair Cook’s captaincy.
England made three changes to their line-up from Saturday’s defeat at Trent Bridge: Gary Ballance replaced Ian Bell, who fractured his left toe in the nets before the game, Gurney was selected ahead of Ben Stokes, while Moeen Ali came in for his first appearance of the series as a replacement for James Tredwell.
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The changes had little effect, although Ali made an impression by making England’s highest individual score of a disappointing series with 67 off 50 balls, including four fours and three sixes.
England never recovered from losing three early wickets after losing the toss on what MS Dhoni, India’s captain, described as a “sticky” wicket. It was an accurate description of England’s performance if not the conditions with a succession of ill-judged shots ensuring another desperately modest total.
While India’s spinners dominated the previous two defeats in Cardiff and Trent Bridge, this time it was their seamers who made early inroads and established the foundations of their comprehensive victory. Bhuvneshwar Kumar was the architect of that, claiming figures of 8-3-14-2 in his opening spell, with Alex Hales bowled by an inswinger and Cook caught at fine gully attempting a late cut.
Ballance fell three overs later, caught at cover off a leading edge from Mohammed Shami’s second ball from around the wicket, leaving England on 23 for three and in no position to exploit the power-play. Instead, Joe Root and Eoin Morgan attempted to stabilise the innings with an 80-run stand off 127 balls until England’s nemesis in this series, India’s spinners, dismissed them both in quick succession.
Morgan guided Ravindra Jadeja’s off-spin straight to leg slip, while Joe Root fell for 44 four overs later, picking out debutant Dhawal Kulkari, brought in to replace the injured Mohit Sharma, with a reverse sweep off Suresh Raina. The shot execution left a little to be desired, as did its timing, shortly before the start of England’s five overs of power-play.
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Ali, making his first appearance of the series, dominated a 50-run stand off only 40 balls with Jos Buttler, who fell lbw just three balls short of the end of the fielding restrictions having played an unusually subservient role to Ali’s strokeplay.
Ali fell in the 47th over, bowled by Ravichandran Ashwin advancing down the pitch, and with few strokemakers in England’s lower order, they were dismissed with three balls of the innings remaining having added only 42 runs from the final ten overs.