It was hoped that England would learn from the 2-1 defeat to the West Indies earlier in the summer and this performance suggests they have. England showed patience and confidence during the opening 20 overs of the innings. Wickets were not frittered away, they were kept in hand for a late and brutal onslaught. England failed to match the West Indies, who twice smacked more than 100 runs in the final 10 overs, but 78 was not bad. What was impressive was the accumulation of 200 runs between the 21st and 30th overs.
England were helped by India who were awful. The selection of only three specialist seamers was wrong, the fielding was ragged towards the end of England's innings and the batting was clueless. A criticism of England when they played the West Indies was that they did not pick bowlers capable of taking wickets in the middle of an innings and this was the case here for India.
It was as though India entered the game believing that they could chase down whatever England set them. This assessment became questionable in the third over of India's reply when Panesar ran Ganguly out and it had all but evaporated by the end of Anderson's excellent opening spell. Anderson's first wicket, that of Gautam Gambhir, made him the fifth England bowler to claim 100 one-day scalps, but it was the dismissal of Tendulkar, caught at mid-wicket, that gave him greater pleasure.
If you ignore that bit about accumulating 200 runs in 10 overs, which must be weird some kind of typo (England actually managed 200 from the last 30 overs and you would have to say they sold themselves some 25, 30 runs short given the kind of platform they had, and the batting to follow), the point about India not really caring too much about what happens with the ball and in the field, and banking on its batting lineup to chase down anything on the board, is well taken.
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