England bounced back and cruised to a stunning and historic thrashing of India in Adelaide to storm into the final of the T20 World Cup as Alex Hales and Jos Buttler faced the most well supported and with more resources in the world and playing with them like a cat. it could be a ball of wool, making them look roughly as menacing.
Pakistan await in Melbourne on Sunday, and they will not have enjoyed what they saw from their opponents here. England reached 170 with 10 wickets and four overs to spare, Hales (who scored 86 from 47) and Buttler (80 from 49) producing not only the biggest but in any way you like the partnership of ‘biggest opening in England’s Twenty20 history. In the end, India were a mob, their performance summed up by England completing a four in total, a rare disappearance in this format, after Mohammed Shami came on and tried to throw the ball to a teammate but missed miss, and by Suryakumar Yadav who was running back. at mid-wicket and not only failed to catch Buttler, he managed to take the ball another 10 yards to the rope.
Poor Phil Salt, slated to go in at #3, but not required. Having watched all the games from the touchline, he was chosen to replace Dawid Malan, but still had to watch most of the game from the touchline. It is now impossible to argue with England’s decision to favor Hales as opener, and as they have come to have to win every remaining match, he has scored 52, 47 and now 86 at an average strike rate of 158. This was a very controlled entry. , in which he scored at great pace but did not appear unhurried, and his best shots were not only elegant in their execution but impeccable in their timing. India, for example, would have hoped to use their spinners to control England’s run-rate, but twice, against Axar Patel and Ravichandran Ashwin, Hales disabused them of that idea by sending a sweep into the crowd.
Meanwhile, Buttler had promised that he would show no fear of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, against whom he previously had a remarkably poor record. He scored 13 runs from the seven balls he faced from the 32-year-old, smashing three-quarters of the bowler’s first over, and after the second ended with Hales dancing across the wicket to hit long-on for six Kumar was sent to the field at the limit, never to return. Once the finish line came into sight, Buttler sprinted towards it; after scoring 45 in his first 34 deliveries, he added 35 in his last 15, including the six that finished him off.
The ground that witnessed England’s worst moment in white-ball cricket, against Bangladesh in 2015, witnessed what may be only the 2019 World Cup final away from their best. This was a night where a team that hadn’t really hit top speed at any stage of this tournament suddenly went supersonic.
Although Virat Kohli scored another half-century, it was Hardik Pandya, with a 33-ball 63, who was mainly responsible for taking India to what looked a reasonable total with a series of boundaries towards the end of his innings, and there would have been one more had he not stepped on the stumps while driving the last ball towards the rope. But instead of striking terror in England, his innings only inspired hope: Buttler said afterwards that Pandya had just “shown what a good wicket he was”.
England’s Jos Buttler (left) and Alex Hales walk off the field after their semi-final win against India. Photograph: James Elsby/AP
Pandya’s innings at least turned an utter humiliation into a simple emphatic thrashing. For much of their 20 overs, India were simply pedestrian, calmed down by both excellent bowling: Adil Rashid was superb, going for five overs and taking the key wicket of Yadav, and Chris Jordan replaced the injured Mark Wood and took three wickets in his first match of the tournament, and a bewildering lack of ambition with the bat.
Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers’ views on the biggest stories and a review of the week’s action
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertisements and content funded by third parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
England’s previous three chases in the competition, against Afghanistan, Ireland and Sri Lanka, were awkward, but this was a transformed team. They took a very different approach to their innings in India as they tried to score quite quickly early on. They still had 10 balls left in the powerplay when they equaled six more of India’s total; they reached 50 off their 29th ball, when India had taken 43. At the halfway mark of their innings, India had scored 62 off 60 balls; England was at 98.
It was a spectacular vindication of Buttler’s decision in the toss to chase, that while his instinct more often than not agreed with the new consensus that has settled in this tournament. It seemed to be this consensus that informed India’s innings: only one team here, and heading into the Super 12, had successfully chased more than 160, so 168 would be an excellent score. England, on the other hand, had been positively salivating over the state of the wicket for three days and thought there could be more runs. It turned out they were right.