Nottingham: India's spinners again proved England's undoing as the tourists won the third one-day international at Trent Bridge on Saturday by six wickets to take a 2-0 lead in the five-match series.
World champions India, chasing a modest 228 for victory, cruised to 228 for four with seven overs to spare. Ambati Rayudu, only playing because of Rohit Sharma's tour-ending finger injury, was an ODI-best 64 not out.
Together with Suresh Raina, who followed up his 100 in India's equally dominant 133-run victory in Cardiff on Wednesday with a run-a-ball 42, Rayudu put on 87 for the fourth wicket. But it was the first innings that decided the course of the match, with England dismissed for a meagre 227 after losing the toss. They were 82 without loss thanks to under-fire captain Alastair Cook (44) and Alex Hales (42).
But England, as happened in Cardiff, again succumbed to spin as they lost three wickets for 15 runs in six overs to be 97 for three. Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, thr man-of-the-match, took three for 39, with only Jos Buttler (42), apart from Cook and Hales, passing 40 in the innings.
England managed just one four in 26 overs midway through their innings and didn't hit a six until the last over. Cook and Hales posted their second fifty partnership, off 64 balls, in as many matches. But their stand ended when Hales, on his Nottinghamshire home ground, top-edged a sweep off spin-bowling all-rounder Raina's sixth ball and was caught by India captain and wicketkeeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
It was the second time in as many matches that Hales, who made 40 on ODI debut in Cardiff, had fallen to the sweep shot.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE DEATILED MATCH COMMENTARY
Bogged down
His exit was the cue for England to once more get bogged down against slow bowling. Occasional spinner Rayudu took his first international wicket when he speared one down the legside to have Cook stumped by Dhoni. Cook, whom former England team-mate Graeme Swann suggested this week should quit one-day cricket because he scores too slowly, took 65 balls to get his runs on Saturday.
Dhoni was involved again when he stumped Joe Root (two) after the batsman lunged forward to left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja. Eoin Morgan (10) was also undone by spin, Ashwin turning the ball away from the left-hander and Dhoni holding the edge to complete his fourth dismissal of the innings.
An ambling Ian Bell (28) was then run out by Mohit Sharma's dramatic direct hit from wide long off. All-rounder Ben Stokes (two) added to his growing list of low scores for England when Raina held a brilliant low, one-handed, slip catch off Ashwin. Stokes's exit left England 149 for six and, unsurprisingly, the lower order could not repair the damage.
Ajinkya Rahane, promoted to open in place of Rohit Sharma, showed his class with a textbook cover-driven four off James Anderson. Virat Kohli, who averaged just 13.4 in India's preceding 3-1 Test series defeat and was out for a duck on Wednesday, drove off-spinner James Tredwell for six in the 13th over. Rahane then lofted Stokes high over long-off for six to the delight of the India fans in a 17,000 sell-out crowd. But he was out for 45 when fast bowler Steven Finn, playing his first international match in nearly a year, had Rahane caught behind as he tried to run the ball down to third man.
And Kohli's promising 50-ball innings of 40, his best international score of the tour, ended when he somehow flicked Stokes straight to Tredwell at mid-on. Stokes then gave Kohli a verbal 'send-off', which prompted a warning from umpires Paul Reiffel and Michael Gough. India were now 120 for three but the rarely troubled Rayudu went on to complete an impressive fifty when he deliberately uppercut Finn for his fifth four in 63 balls. The series continues at Birmingham's Edgbaston ground on Tuesday.
