India vs England: India Post 189/7 Before Rain Halts Play, Phil Salt Suffers Shoulder Scare

The last ball of the Indian innings was total chaos, and it was frankly a pretty strange note to end on. Axar Patel leaving the ball, thinking it was a wide, staying put to keep Shivam Dube on strike, and then Sam Curran just walking up and whipping the bails off while everyone watched – you don’t see that every day. But as it turned out, the weather stole the whole show anyway.

The torrential rain that had begun during the interval of the innings at Chester-le-Street simply would not go away. The ground staff did their best, but the deluge was relentless and the outfield was completely waterlogged. The umpires had no choice but to officially call off the game in the end, and that meant the match was abandoned with England never facing a single ball in their chase.

The match was abandoned before the halfway stage, meaning the scoreboard is wiped clean and the five-match series remains deadlocked at 0-0. It is incredibly frustrating for the fans and both teams, especially after such a highly anticipated build-up, but there are still a lot of massive positives that India can take from how they went about their time at the crease.

Following a nightmare start where India were 6/2 after the first two overs, the batting order displayed plenty of resilience:

Abhishek Sharma went completely rogue, and instead of shutting up shop, he counterattacked beautifully, smashing a phenomenal 59 off just 24 deliveries. In fact, during that explosive innings, he made a bit of cricket history by becoming the fastest batsman to score 100 T20I sixes. He achieved the landmark in a mind-boggling 785 balls.

Shreyas Iyer kept the ship steady. Iyer played a true captain’s innings to steady the whole middle order. He played a more composed and tactical innings, scoring a gritty 68 off 47 balls and putting on a crucial 82-run partnership with Abhishek to totally rebuild the innings.

Late muscle from Shivam Dube: Dube ensured India finished on a high, smashing an unbeaten 42 off just 21 balls. His late cameo was exactly what India needed to take their total to a very competitive 189/7 – a score that would have really tested England’s batters on a damp, tricky pitch.

England will be relieved to hear Phil Salt’s shoulder injury was not more serious, with the medical staff confirming it was just an external impact from a dive and he would have been cleared to open the batting.

Both clubs will have to get over the frustration of the rainout pretty quickly. They’re packing up and heading straight to Manchester’s Old Trafford for the second T20I this Saturday, July 4th. Let’s hope the British weather plays ball this time and we get a full game of cricket.