Jason Roy and Joe Root hit sublime half-centuries while Ben Stokes struck a whirlwind 62 off 40 balls in the slog overs to help England amass a mammoth total of 350 for the loss of seven wickets against hosts India at Pune on Sunday.
Winning the toss, Indian skipper Virat Kohli decided to bowl first. However, the decision did not turn out to be quite right as the visitors began to score quickly right from the word go. Despite losing Alex Hales (9) early in the innings, the Poms continued to amass runs as the bowlers erred in line and length at major intervals. Plus, some sloppy fielding did not help the hosts either.
Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah took two wickets apiece while Ravindra Jadeja scalped one. Umesh Yadav too managed to take a wicket but gave away 63 runs before castling Moeen Ali. The English batsmen managed to score a whopping 105 runs in the last eight overs, much to the misery of Indian bowlers. It would be interesting to see how the Indian batsmen fare when they go out to chase under lights.
India and England play a three ODI series with the second and third ODIs scheduled to be played in Cuttack and Kolkata on January 19 and 21 respectively. Both the teams will also play two T20Is which will be played in Kanpur on January 26 and Nagpur on January 29.
India and England played a five-match Test series in which the hosts whitewashed the Alastair Cook-led England team 4-0.
