India are in a commanding position of having taken an unbeatable 2-0 lead, with just 2 matches left in the 5-match ODI series against England. We move on to Edgbaston, Birmingham for the next match, which begins later today and can be seen live on Star Sports in India from 2:55 PM.
While Indian captain was at the receiving end of all the criticism at the end of the Investec Test series, for the ODI series, it is Alastair Cook who finds the entire lot of cricket experts and media ganged up against him. Almost every former English cricket great, from Geoffrey Boycott to Kevin Pietersen, from Graeme Swann to Michael Vaughn, has asked for Cook’s ouster from the one day team to change things around for England, especially with the ODI World Cup in Australia around the corner.
England are so desperate to change things around that they are all set to drop their premier one day international batsman, Eoin Morgan and their best young batsman Joe Root, after a string of failures in the one day arena. Morgan’s performance in particular has been quite poor and regardless of his amazing performances for England in the past, Morgan should know that he cannot live any longer on past glory. Says England coach Peter Moores, while talking about Morgan: “I’m not saying whose place is safe or not safe but Eoin is frustrated he hasn’t got a score. His skill, once he gets up and running, is that he’s hard to bowl dots to and he can attack pretty well any sort of bowling. I see him as a real key component as we go forward.”
Talking about playing Moeen Ali and Gary Ballance, Peter Moores said:”We could play both. Probably two offspinners in the same team wouldn’t normally be your absolute ideal. Moeen’s not had much opportunity yet. We saw him rapidly develop as a Test match bowler and we want to create opportunities for him at some point, to look where he’s at. We’ve seen always in international cricket some people grow very fast and that’s what we have got to find out.”
While England are understandably anxious to reduce the margin of defeat, the Indian camp is highly relaxed, which is a pleasant change from the Test series. A victory in the one day internationals is hardly good enough to make up for the humiliating loss in the Tests, but certainly, it gives the long suffering Indian cricket fan something to be happy about. The only probable change for India is that Umesh Yadav is likely to play if Mohit Sharma is considered to be unfit because of the injury he picked up in the last match.
Weather and Pitch
The last time a match was played at Edgbaston, the England pace bowlers complained about the pitch being too slow and almost placid. One may expect the groundsman to leave more grass on the track than before. The weather is clear and sunny, with no chance of rain. Which is such a relief! All tickets have already been sold, so we may expect a great day at Edgbaston later today, with great support for India expected.
Probable Teams:
England: Alastair Cook (capt), Alex Hales, Ian Bell/Gary Ballance, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan, Moeen Ali, Jos Buttler (wk), Chris Woakes, Steven Finn, James Tredwell, James Anderson
India: Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Ambati Rayudu, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni (capt & wk), Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Mohit Sharma
