AGENCY
NAGPUR: Young Jasprit Bumrah shone in the death like never before as his excellent final over ensured India sensationally edged out England by five runs in the second Twenty20 International to level the three-match series here tonight.
Needing eight runs off six balls, Bumrah, all of 23, perhaps bowled the over of his life as he restricted England to just two runs and end their innings at 139 for six in pursuit of 145.
The match seemed to be in England’s bag when Jos Buttler clobbered veteran Ashish Nehra for 16 runs with two sixes in the penultimate over. However, Bumrah had other ideas, eventually finishing with figures of 2/20 in 4 overs, while his senior colleague Nehra took 3/28.
This was after opener K L rahul stood out with a breezy 71 on a surface where shot-making was difficult.
Put in to bat, Rahul’s knock was the lone bright spot as India could manage a modest score before the bowlers turned the match around on its head.
England made light of the loss of openers Jason Roy and Sam Billings off successive balls in the fourth over bowled by left-arm pacer Nehra and were well on way to pull off the win when they rode on Root’s run-a-ball 38 and Ben Stokes’ 38 and their fourth wicket partnership of 52 in 41 balls.
Root had been involved in an important third-wicket stand of 43 in 41 balls with his captain Eoin Morgan.
Nehra came back for his second spell and also broke through by dismissing Stokes leg before after the batsman had struck two sixes and two fours in his 33-ball knock and had been bowled off a no-ball by Amit Mishra.
Wearing black armbands to mourn the sudden demise of India’s under 19 and A team trainer Rajeev Sawant and the father of fast bowler Mohammed Shami who is not part of the squad, the home team batsmen failed to get going in earnest.
score board
India innings
V Kohli (C) c L Dawson b C Jordan 21
L Rahul c B Stokes b C Jordan 71
S Raina c C Jordan b A Rashid 07
Y Singh lbw b M Ali 04
M Pandey b T Mills 30
M Dhoni (†) b C Jordan 05
H Pandya run out (C Jordan) 02
A Mishra run out (M Ali) 00
J Bumrah not out 00
Extras 04
Total 144/8
England innings
J Roy c S Raina b A Nehra 10
S Billings c J Bumrah b A Nehra 12
J Root lbw b J Bumrah 38
E Morgan (C) c H Pandya b A Mishra 17
B Stokes lbw b A Nehra 38
J Buttler (†) b J Bumrah 15
M Ali not out 01
C Jordan not out 00
Extras 08
Total 139/6
