Traditionally Test cricket was played amongst cricket playing countries. The Olympics has yet not included cricket into its list. But we have today been enjoying various formats of cricket.
Indian cricketers have lately demonstrated that they are the best in every format. At least no one can deny this fact following the recent series wins in all the formats against England. The fortunate winning outcome gets documented. The visitors never felt that they were going to get simultaneous defeats one after another, but for some ambiguous reason, the thought of it compressed their body with an adverse angle.
Although India’s clean sweep of series wins against England registers a new record in international cricket, yet, what England’s stand-in captain Jos Butler uttered after the 7-run defeat in the last 50-over match cannot be overlooked for days to come.
He said: “We came here wanting to win and we haven’t managed to do that, adding that of course, we’re disappointed with that, but we’ve learnt a lot as a side and seen many guys stand up and take the lead. The white-ball leg was incredibly competitive. These are the conditions we will face shortly in the World Cup.”
Disillusioned they were, as was clear from Buttler’s utterances. Despite winning the toss in most of the matches, the England team failed to win any of the three series. The defeat not only denied England a first ODI series triumph in India in 36 years but also means they finish the tour without a victory in any of the three formats, having lost the Tests 3-1 and T20s by a margin of 3-2.
Undeniably, the matches during all three versions were fantastic. Both sides did make some errors but displayed some brilliant cricket. A remarkable strike from Curran to practically get the team over the line failed ultimately.
Lauding the play of Sam Curran in the justly concluded final, Buttler maintained that he did well to take responsibility and take a lot of the strike and it took great character to play the way he did. He had those amazing qualities in abundance. “He didn’t get us over the line, but we are all very proud of him and his performance.”
However, Buttler did congratulate India on winning. It’s a great experience for the young guys to play a top-class side like India and they will be better cricketers for it. Accepting his deficiency, he reacted that they didn’t bowl that well at the top, gave away easy boundaries, but dragged it back only to be pegged back by Pant and Pandya. “But we restricted them well enough. We didn’t have those big partnerships to take us over the line.”
Lastly, it will be apt to say that a cricket team does have to be lucky to be good with victory on the cricket field and India was fortunately blessed with luck this time of year.