England lost the deciding T20 game at Bristol by 7 wickets to a strong Indian team led by Rohit Sharma's brilliant century and a career best bowling display by Hardik Pandya.

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Analysis

England got themselves off to a promising with Jason Roy and Jos Butler striking the ball nicely in a partnership 94 from just 47balls. However, once both batsmen had been dismissed England struggled to really gain any momentum in the innings and despite a couple of cameos from Hales and Bairstow, their overall total of 198 was at least 20 runs short of what they should have scored on a flat pitch and having made such a good start.

The disappointment for several of the England batsmen will be the manner of their dismissals. Roy, Hales and Bairstow, all of whom were striking the ball beautifully came undone in almost identical ways as they looked to dab the seamers down to third man, with all 3 batsmen only succeeding in guiding the ball into the hands of MS Dhoni who took a record 5 catches behind the stumps. Eoin Morgan was dropped top edging the skiddy Pandya and then very next ball attempted the same shot. Not only does one have to question the shot selection, you also have to ask why didn't the batsmen go through for a single? Had England not been so lose with their shot making then they would have given their bowlers a score to defend against the quality of the Indian batting line up.

Credit however must go the Indian bowlers who came back superbly from those early overs to reign England back to a total that their batsman ultimately chased with ease. I was particularly impressed with Hardik Pandya who was taken for 22 off his first over but bowled his next 3 overs of just 16 runs and took 4 wickets to end with career best figures.
India made the slightly odd decision to play an extra seamer in place of Yadav Kuldeep the young wrist spinner who destroyed the English batting line up in the first game. I can only assume that the Indians had decided that a greener looking Bristol pitch would seam around a little more. At the half-way point with England costing towards a massive score, that looked like it might prove to be a disastrous decision until Pandya and co turned the game around.

As for India, I guess they have a similar kind of problem as England in terms of deciding who to select to open the batting in the short forms of the game. Both Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul have shown just how classy they are with centuries in the series. Dawan currently occupies one of the opening spots but he will know that the pressure is now on both from those 2 players and the whole host of young talent that India has coming through the ranks looking to establish themselves at the highest level of the game. Lets be fair it's a nice problem for them to have and one that every other cricketing country will be jealous of. I said during my posts earlier in the year on the IPL that the amount of talent that India have at their disposal is scary and they look set to dominate all forms of cricket for the foreseeable future.

The 2 teams now head into the ODI series. England are currently ranked number 1 in the world in the 50 over format having not lost an ODI series in the last 18months. I very much doubt that this Indian side will be intimidated by that fact and we can expect another tense and exciting series of cricket.

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