ADELAIDE- A thoroughly professional England annihilated an out-of- sync India by 10 wickets to sail into the World Cup final as Alex Hales and Jos Buttler’s relentless hitting mortified Rohit Sharma’s clueless attack, here on Thursday.
It was Hardik Pandya (68 off 33 balls), whose fearless hitting took India to 168 for six but it was just about a par-score at the Adelaide Oval.
England captain Buttler (80 not out) set the tone with three boundaries off Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s opening over but it was Hales (86 not out off) who butchered the Indian attack into submission.
The target was achieved in just 16 overs as England batting line-up clicked for the first time in the tourney and what a day it chose to brings its A game to the fore.
Hales hit as many as seven sixes in his 47-ball knock and his approach showed that there were no demons in the track. He deployed the old-fashioned ‘Sanath Jayasuriya school’ of hitting in the first six overs.
Bhuvneshwar and Arshdeep Singh didn’t get enough swing up front and team management’s fascination to play Axar Patel (0/30 in 4 overs) and Ravichandran Ashwin (0/27 in 2 overs) ahead of Yuzvendra Chahal backfired badly.
The success England spinner Adil Rashid (1/20 in 4 overs) on the same track added insult to the injury.
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