England win second ODI against India after Jonny Bairstow and Ben Stokes blast tourists to victory

One of the arguments in favour of ODIs is that the format provides tastes of Test and T20 cricket. In reality, it doesn’t quite offer the best of either. The slow tactical burn of the five-day game is fleeting, and you can set your watch to the start or finish of an innings for your big-hitting fix.

But on Friday at Pune, as England won the second ODI by six wickets to square the series, we got to experience both the light and shade. Because it was in the midst of a tense chase of 337 that England exploded to life, carving apart India with the kind of devastation that, actually, you rarely find in T20, with the kind of sustained skilful batsmanship only the very best of Test cricket can provide. 

An 11th ODI century from Jonny Bairstow of 124 and a 99 from Ben Stokes ultimately saw the tourists home. But it was together, in a 117-ball partnership that produced 175 runs, that brutally ripped out all the nerve endings from this fixture. KL Rahul’s 108 and Rishabh Pant’s 77 from 40 looked to have reduced the margin of error for England’s innings as they helped India to a very competitive 336 for six. But here we are, England home and hosed with 39 balls to spare and a decider set-up for Sunday. 

Even within the Bairstow-Stokes assault, the punishment dished out by the ginger destroyers went up a notch at the death. The last 49 balls of the partnership, which includes the dot of the Bairstow dismissal, produced 107 runs. The last 66 came in just 18. 

There was a touch of good fortune for Stokes who, coming back for his 33rd run, looked just short of his ground when a throw from the deep hit the stumps. The television umpire was reticent to push the red button to make it 169 for two and, well, the rest is history. Stokes went on to lead the charge, finishing with 10 sixes to his name, with Bairstow pitching in seven. India, as a whole, cleared the ropes just 14 times.

Read more:

The six-fest meant the inexperienced England XI was nothing to worry about. There were key absentees with injuries to Eoin Morgan and Sam Billings, and the resting of Mark Wood meant the tourists had to reach deeper into their squad which already had a green tinge. In came Liam Livingstone for his 50-over debut and Dawid Malan for just his second appearance at this level, while Surrey left-armer Reece Topley was drafted in for just his 17th international. 

Without Wood, and with Jofra Archer and Chris Woakes back in the United Kingdom, this was never going to be an attack to take out all 10 Indian wickets. Thus, when stand-in captain Jos Buttler won the toss and elected to bowl first, consolidation was the name of the game. 

It worked for the most part, certainly the first half of the first innings: just 112 scored as Topley picked up Shikhar Dhawan, who scored 98 in the first ODI, for just four and Sam Curran had Rohit Sharma caught around the corner (25) within the first nine overs. However, as the second-half flurry of 224 showed, the sense of control for England bowlers was only a facade.

The binding agent between both sections was Rahul, his fifth ODI century welcome on many fronts, not least his own. A T20 series of a single run and two ducks was in keeping with his form in Tests with 12 knocks without a half-century that led to his axing from that particular set-up in 2019. His unbeaten 62 from number five on Tuesday kept the knives at bay from slicing up his white-ball credentials. Here, up to four to cover Shreyas Iyer’s shoulder injury, he provided a stronger rebuttal, reaching the milestone from 108 deliveries. 

With all due respect to Rahul and his approach, the hurry-on happened around him, led primarily by Iyer’s replacement. The fuel and the fire was provided by Pant – it always seems to be these days – in a remarkable stunt that saw him start the 37th over with seven from nine deliveries and depart with the penultimate ball of the 47th with 77 from 40. His 50 came off 28 and contributed 57 to the century stand with Rahul that took just 67. 

Sam Curran’s seventh over was taken for 21, featuring a six from Pant that was sandwiched by two by new batsman Hardik Pandya from the first and third ball he faced. The allrounder had 20 from seven when Pant eventually sliced a high catch to Jason Roy at deep point. Hardik, joined by brother Krunal, combined for 28 off three overs before they were split with one ball to go. 

It left much for Buttler to rue, including his own performance behind the stumps. He shelled Kohli off Adil Rashid on 36, before holding onto the India captain when he edged the leg-spinner on 66. He also put down Hardik (35 off 16) on 21 when Topley had done the tall right-hander with a bit of extra bounce for a scythed edge which was casually palmed and missed on the rebound when it could have been formally taken first-time. 

The chase started in what we should get used to calling “typically English” fashion: Roy and Bairstow combining for their 13^th century stand in 43 innings opening, number 12 coming in the first ODI. The reminder from then was that even a stand of 135 in 14.1 overs was no guarantee of success, as the last 10 wickets fell for 116, leaving them 67 short of a 318 target. 

This time it was “only” 110 in a “laboured” 16.2 overs. But the manner in which the two were split – Roy (55, a 28th score of fifty or more) run out by Sharma after a mix-up – created fear that another collapse was in the offing. 

But lessons were learned as England went into the final 20 overs needing 143 more and still only one down. Stokes was set fair on 39, while Bairstow had ticked over to 95, past his previous score of 94 and in good time, too, after finishing the 10-over Power Play of 59 on 19 having faced just 21 balls. 

And then the carnage happened. It started simply enough: Bairstow striking Kuldeep over midwicket for his sixth six – an 18th boundary at the time – to take him into three figures. Satisfied with his work, he tagged in Stokes to stomp a mud-hole in the Indian attack. 

From 50 off 40 deliveries, Stokes needed just nine more to move to 94: 36 coming through sixes, of which three in a row were tonked off Kuldeep. Bairstow jumped back into the ring to clobber 15 off Prasidh Krishna’s seventh over before a straight dart past Bhuveneshwar Kumar took Stokes to 99 from 52. Within grasp of the third-fastest ODI century by an Englishman, a bouncer was tickled through to Pant to end the allrounder’s stay. Off he went for what will go down in the records as an understated “21st half-century”. The devilish details within the scorebook will do him and Bairstow justice, showing a remarkable acceleration of 91 in the final 5.2 overs of this second-wicket stand. 

It meant the wobble to follow could be regarded as a minor inconvenience, even if it saw off Stokes, Bairstow (driving Prasidh to Kohli at cover) and Buttler (yorked by the same bowler for a duck to compound his day) within 10 balls for just two runs. Livingstone, ever the willing striker, registered a handy cameo of 27 not out, featuring two sixes, while Malan also enjoyed some red ink with a subdued 16. 

One of those two will miss out for Sunday’s final fixture on this India tour with Billings expected to recover to reclaim his spot in the middle order. The bowling could do with more bite, which might mean giving Wood another outing. But as we saw here, the batting attack has plenty of teeth to chew down any total conceded.