England go down swinging but suffer another heartbreaking defeat in India as Yuvraj Singh rolls back the years

The fourth highest match aggregate in history; England’s highest ever total batting second. With every match, batting in one-day internationals scales new peaks. In both matches in India, England have showcased batting of stunning verve and skill; it is just that, whether batting first or chasing, it has not quite been enough.

Still, England’s approach when confronted with a target of 382 attested to the bloody-mindedness and chutzpah brimming through the side. Here, no one embodied those qualities like Eoin Morgan.

The captain has made a career out of audacious innings under pressure, but few have matched this for brilliance. He arrived in India facing considerable scrutiny because of his form and especially his decision, when given a free choice, not to tour Bangladesh for security reasons, leaving his family feeling “very offended”. And in this match, he arrived with England facing a daunting run chase to stay in the series, which Morgan’s cumbersome start initially made more daunting still.

But after taking 53 balls over his first 50 runs, Morgan provided a reminder that he remains one of England’s first revolutionaries, as Jos Buttler had called him before the game. There was the meticulous placement, and scampering between the twos. There were the five thundering sixes, four between long on and deep midwicket, and each causing the heaving crowd of 41,000 to fall silent. Most of all, though, there was the unrelenting, methodical focus on the target. Indeed, when Morgan reached his first international century since 2015, he did not even bother with a perfunctory celebration, so immersed was he in the challenge that lay ahead. Rarely can any man ever have celebrated an international century with such complete disinterest.

He was thrillingly supported as England refused to countenance that their precarious position of 206-5, after Jos Buttler was stumped off a wide, would herald defeat. Mooen Ali slogswept with violence and grace in adding 93 with Morgan. And after Chris Woakes fell soon after, Liam Plunkett harrumphed five boundaries of his own. Each shot, like Morgan’s sixes, interspersed the crowd’s noise and energy with dramatic bouts of silence that betrayed their nerves. Only when Morgan fell, run out after committing to a run when Plunkett’s hearty drive was grabbed by Jasprit Bumrah in the penultimate over, did India’s victory finally feel assured. The 2-0 series scoreline can largely be explained by another score: 4-1, India’s lead in centuries this series, following mesmerising hundreds by MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh at Cuttack.

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For all the intoxicating drama of the final throes of this match, for most in the crowd the 256-run alliance between Dhoni and Yuvraj, the pair of 35-year-olds, will provide the abiding memory of the day, and one moment above all.

Upon reaching his first ODI century in six years, Yuvraj Singh looked skywards, paused and then turned to hug MS Dhoni, his international teammate of 12 years. Yuvraj then removed his helmet and, visibly moved, acknowledged the standing ovation of his team and the entire ground. They were not merely saluting a stunning innings to resuscitate India from 25-3, after Virat Kohli had been among those to succumb to Chris Woakes, to set up a series-sealing victory. They were also saluting something altogether greater.

A week shy of five years ago, Yuvraj Singh went to the United States for treatment for rare germ cell cancer. Yuvraj was diagnosed early, and there was never considered a risk to his life, but he still had to complete three cycles of chemotherapy before being declared free of cancer.

Yuvraj returned to the Indian team later that year, and played both in last year’s World Twenty20 and the 2014 tournament. But he performed terribly in one-day international cricket after the 2011 World Cup, averaging 18.53 in 20 games until he was dropped at the end of 2013. Most assumed that he would never play ODI cricket again.

It was Virat Kohli who decided differently. With India’s middle order overdependent upon Dhoni, Yuvraj was recalled, after a fine first-class season, with June’s Champions Trophy in mind.

Here, in a career best 150 made during a thrilling stand of 256 runs in 38.2 overs with Dhoni, Yuvraj showed why. As soon as he greeted Jake Ball with two sumptuous flicks to the legside, this was an innings marked by gloriously impudent shots, none more than his nonchalant flick over long on off Ben Stokes.

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Moving his feet laconically but transferring his weight decisively, Yuvraj thrashed the ball through, and over, the covers, in between a series of thundering flat-batted pulls that mocked the notion of his susceptibility to the short ball.

England tested this theory to destruction in a bowling performance on which they will reflect with no fondness. After the brief surreality of Woakes’s three early wickets, England became increasingly ragtag; Jake Ball missed a tough chance in the deep when Dhoni had 41 and - the admirable Woakes apart - the attack were prone to bowling full tosses. The team selection was also curious, with Adil Rashid, England’s leading wicket-taker in ODI cricket in the past year, omitted.

It was apt that Yuvraj’s match-defining stand was with Dhoni, his long-time captain including when Yuvraj was man of the tournament when India won the 2011 World Cup. While the two eviscerated England, it had a rather nostalgic feel too, a pair of the pre-Kohli age fleetingly seeming immune to the inexorable passage of time. This was their 64^th partnership together, and first of 50 since the World Cup final.

When Dhoni’s decision to stand down as limited overs captain was announced before the series, Kohli suggested that the decision might free up Dhoni’s batting. If it seemed an absurd comment given Dhoni’s stupendous ODI record - an average just over 50 and a strike-rate just under 90 - as Dhoni creamed three sixes off the 48^th over of the innings, the last a staggering shot over extra cover, it did not seem a risible notion at all.

In the 44^th over Liam Plunkett bowled a no-ball, producing a free hit, and then clean bowled Dhoni, but the ball continued unabated to the boundary rope, counting as four byes. A few balls later, Morgan’s direct hit ricocheted off the stumps, allowing India to scamper another single. And after India’s number seven heaved a six, the ball was thrown back into the crowd and hit Stokes in the nose. England were already bloodied, yet their belief was undimmed till the end of this pulsating match.