England’s one-sided series against West Indies last month was merely a dress rehearsal: India was always going to be the main show. And so the curtain finally went up on the Charlotte Edwards-Nat Sciver-Brunt era for a Trent Bridge Saturday matinee.
The audience, though, went home disappointed after witnessing an England performance akin to The Play That Goes Wrong – bowled out for 113 inside 15 overs, to give India a 97-run win, England’s heaviest T20 international defeat in terms of runs.
Edwards’s calling-card has been about transforming this England team into a side who play smart cricket and find ways to win, but with the honourable exception of captain Sciver-Brunt – whose 66 from 42 balls was the only contribution of note – this performance failed on both counts.
India’s left-arm spinner Shee Charani finished with figures of four for 12 on T20 debut, including removing Sciver-Brunt after DRS showed she had nicked off behind the stumps. But Charani’s maiden wicket in the ninth over encapsulated everything that was wrong with this England run chase: Alice Capsey meekly wafting one into the hands of Arundhati Reddy at short third, as England sunk to 70 for five.
India were without their captain Harmanpreet Kaur, who had failed to recover in time after sustaining a head injury during Wednesday’s warm-up match. But stand-in Smriti Mandhana shrugged off her absence with the same easy nonchalance with which she hit the ball, striking a maiden T20 international hundred as India racked up 210 for five – their second highest total ever.
Mandhana eventually holed out to extra cover with four balls remaining – giving Sophie Ecclestone her first international wicket since England’s humiliation at the MCG Test five months ago. But overall Ecclestone’s return to the international stage was a fraught one: some nervous fumbles in the field, followed by a 19-run opening over in which the left-handed Mandhana twice clattered her over the boundary rope for six. Her final return was one for 43 off three overs: she looked every inch a bowler who has just opted out of four weeks of domestic cricket for Lancashire for a wellbeing break.
It was a tough day, too, for Danni Wyatt-Hodge, who shelled Harleen Deol in the deep – the worst of a series of missed chances by the hosts – before adding a third consecutive duck to this summer’s pond of them, sending a leading edge up to short third as England lost their heads (and three wickets) in the powerplay.
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Deol added 17 more runs after the let-off, contributing a punchy 43 from 32 balls, and though India’s innings tailed off slightly at the back-end – thanks to three wickets in successive overs at the death from Lauren Bell – they nevertheless still topped 200. There had been question marks about India’s bowling ahead of this series, with their two experienced seamers Renuka Singh and Pooja Vastrakar missing out due to injury, but with such a mammoth score on the board England were always the ones under pressure – and it told.