Suresh Raina’s dynamic century laid the platform for world champions India’s crushing 133-run win over England in the second one-day international at Cardiff on Wednesday.
Victory gave India a 1-0 lead in the five-match series following Monday’s washout in Bristol and saw them return to winning ways after their 3-1 defeat by England in the preceding Test series.
Man-of-the-match Raina’s innings was the cornerstone of India’s imposing 304 for six after England captain Alastair Cook won the toss.
England, chasing a rain-adjusted 295 off 47 overs in reply, were well-placed at 54 for none.
But they lost all 10 wickets for 107 runs as they collapsed to 161 all out in 38.1 overs.
Prior to this match, former England stars Michael Vaughan and Graeme Swann had slammed the team’s old-fashioned approach to one-day cricket and this performance appeared to vindicate that criticism.
The one consolation for England, who will try to win the World Cup for the first time in four decades of trying in Australia and New Zealand next year, was that opener Alex Hales marked his ODI debut with an innings top-score of 40.
Spin, as has so often been the case, proved England’s Achilles heel with left-armer Ravindra Jadeja taking four for 28 in seven overs.
India were in trouble at 19 for two before a stand of 91 between Rohit Sharma (52) and Ajinkya Rahane (41) revived the innings.
Left-hander Raina, who made exactly 100, and India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni (52), then took the game way from England with a fifth-wicket stand of 144.
Chris Woakes led England’s attack with four for 52 in his 10 overs, with off-spinner James Tredwell (two for 42) the only other wicket-taking bowler in the innings.
“One-day cricket is a very different format and gives the players freedom to express themselves and get back into form,” Dhoni told Sky Sports.
Meanwhile England captain Alastair Cook admitted: “We didn’t play well at all,” he said.
“All credit to MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina who took the game away from us and we were slow to react.
“Even when we batted, it wasn’t a 160 wicket…We have to dust ourselves down and play better.”
England didn’t help themselves by bowling 16 wides, with paceman Chris Jordan contributing 12 — the equivalent of two extra overs — in an expensive return of none for 73.
Woakes struck twice in the seventh over, having opener Shikhar Dhawan caught behind before dismissing Virat Kohli for a duck as his miserable tour of England continued when a powerful drive found Cook at mid-off.
There was a case for keeping the new ball duo of James Anderson and Woakes going.
– India cut loose –
But Cook’s double bowling change, bringing on seam-bowling all-rounders Jordan and Ben Stokes (none for 54 in seven overs) saw India cut loose.
Tredwell briefly staunched the flow of runs by having Rahane stumped and dismissing Sharma.
Raina, however, launched Woakes for two sixes in four balls, with India scoring 62 runs in their five batting powerplay overs.
Raina completed a century off just 74 balls, including 12 fours and three sixes before he holed out off Woakes to Anderson, on the cover boundary.
Hales, who scored England’s first Twenty20 hundred, against Sri Lanka in March, helped the hosts a steady start to their chase.
But when left-handed opener Cook, going across his stumps, was lbw to Mohammed Shami for 19, it was the start of a collapse from which England never recovered.
Three balls later Shami bowled Ian Bell (one) as the batsman left a nip-backer.
A similar delivery, this time from Bhuvneshwar Kumar, cleaned up Joe Root.
Hales had looked good early on but then got bogged down, scoring just 10 singles off his last 34 balls.
He was out when he top-edged a sweep off Jadeja’s fourth ball to short fine leg.
Raina then starred with he ball when he had Jordan plumb lbw for a duck and the match ended when Tredwell holed out off Ashwin.
