England won by 100 runs as Reece Topley finishes with 6 wickets

Reece Topley currently has the greatest ODI performance ever by an England bowler. What a spell today to help his side to tie the series 1-1. The total appeared to be reasonable, but India failed to even challenge it, falling to 31/4 in the 11th over after losing wickets quickly against the new ball. Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav, and Ravindra Jadeja all contributed significantly. But the best they could come up with was a score of 29.

The pitch, it must be admitted, provided some seam movement, which England took full use of it. And, as the match progresses, it seemed to slow down, making run-scoring more difficult, similar to what India experienced four years ago in an ODI at this stadium.

Earlier after winning the toss, Rohit Sharma had no difficulty in bowling on a surface that had some moisture in it at first. However, unlike The Oval, the field here dried fast and was a far better surface to bat on. That is what makes this bowling performance so remarkable. Several English hitters had started, but none really took off, and they also suffered a mini-collapse, falling from 72/1 to 102/5.

Yuzvendra Chahal was the standout player, delivering some fearless middle-overs and nearly all of his hits were vital, none more so than Bairstow's just as the Wicket-keeper batsman was about to go big. That victory marked the beginning of India's turnaround in the game, and the score might have been considerably lower if not for the Moeen-Willey partnership. Especially if the pair's catch was picked up early in the innings by Prasidh Krishna at fine leg. Except for Prasidh, India's bowling was generally excellent. This isn't the best batting surface, but 246 is around 30-40 runs less than you'd expect. It was expected that England will need to bowl really well to keep the series alive by winning this match.