England were counting the cost of their worst ever World Cup campaign after they flopped to a fifth defeat in six games against hosts India.
Despite a rocky history in one-day cricket the defending champions of 2019 have plumbed new depths over the last four weeks, racking up their most losses at a single tournament and an unprecedented sequence of four-in-a-row.
A 100-run thrashing in Lucknow, where they were skittled for a paltry 129, leaves them rooted to the foot of the table in 10th place and on course to embarrassingly miss out on the 2025 Champions Trophy.
It has emerged that places at that event, a ‘mini World Cup’ of sorts, will be awarded to hosts Pakistan and the seven best finishers in group stages of this event rather than being allocated on ICC rankings. As it stands, merely scrambling to eighth place will require a mighty turnaround in fortunes over the next three games.
For a side widely credited with revitalising the 50-over format over the last eight years, that would cap a remarkable fall from grace.
Losing to the table-topping hosts in front of 50,000 bombastic fans at the Ekana Stadium was no surprise – head coach Matthew Mott even billed the opposition “raging favourites” – but this was an opportunity missed.
A much-improved bowling and fielding performance, their best of the tournament to date, had restricted India to 229 for nine, but a top-order collapse left a hole they could not climb out of.
Between the penultimate ball of the fifth over and the first ball of the ninth, England lost their top four for just nine runs as Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Shami ran amok. Between them the seam duo were a cut above England, sharing combined figures of seven for 54.
England began their chase with an air of misplaced confidence, tearing 30 off their target in less than five overs before things fell apart.
The architect of their downfall was the impeccable Bumrah, who had already started to get the ball talking before he claimed two wickets in two balls.
Dawid Malan was the first, slashing at width that was not there and dragging down his own stumps to stop the growing momentum in its tracks. For his next trick, Bumrah removed the linchpin Root for a golden duck.
Sizing his target up with a wicked delivery that tailed in on a full length, he thumped the front pad as Root shuffled across. It looked plumb lbw, but Root called for DRS.
UltraEdge showed a tiny disturbance as the ball passed the inside edge but TV umpire Ahsan Raza upheld the dismissal leaving Root pointedly waving his bat towards the big screen replays.
Stokes has bailed England out of worse dilemmas, but this time he could only exacerbate it.
Unable to get to grips with a high-class examination from India’s seamers he departed to an ugly swipe after a runless 10-ball cameo. Resolving to slog his way out of the mire, he cleared his front leg to a precision inducker from Shami, losing his composure, his balance and two of his stumps in one dreadful moment.
The stands exploded in celebration, with Kohli leaping high and punching the air with joy. Bairstow was next in line, bowled by Shami via two separate deflections to leave England 39 for four.
Buttler’s lean spell continued as he was wildly outfoxed by a ripper from left-arm wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav, hunched over his bat as he took England’s last hopes with him. Liam Livingstone top-scored with a modest 27, but the contest was already over settled as India applied the finishing touches inside 35 overs.
England, who surprisingly went in with the same XI that had been roundly hammered by Sri Lanka three days earlier, at least showed some fight in the first innings.
They bowled with control, kept producing chances and were visibly sharper in the field. Were it not for a captain’s knock of 87 from Rohit Sharma, that may well have been enough.
But his steadying hand, allied to a handy contribution of 49 from Suryakumar Yadav at the back end, bought India’s attack enough breathing space.
David Willey was the standout, claiming three for 45 including star man Virat Kohli for a nine-ball duck. Willey bowled every delivery to the master batter, tying him up with a nagging line and length before drawing a frustrated hack to mid-off.
That moment drew an instant, deathly silence from the massed thousands wearing replica ‘Virat’ shirts, with Willey flexing his biceps and filling the void with his own roar. He followed up with timely dismissals of KL Rahul (39) and Yadav, while Woakes and Adil Rashid also turned in encouraging performances.
With India losing four for 49 in the last 10 overs, it was hard to see what more England could have done to set up the chase but a limp batting display saw them bowled out for their lowest World Cup total since the inaugural edition in 1975.
Bayern star Kane scores 400th senior goal
Harry Kane surpassed the 400-goal mark for his senior career as his double helped Bayern Munich beat Eintracht Frankfurt 2-1 at the Allianz Arena on Saturday.
Kane moved within one of the milestone as he put Bayern 1-0 up after just nine minutes, coolly finishing from close range after Konrad Laimer's pass had set him up.
Then, after Frankfurt levelled through Hugo Ekitike, Kane slotted home a penalty with typical aplomb following a foul on Thomas Muller to move himself onto 400 career goals and ultimately lead Bayern to victory.
Kane scored 280 of his goals in 435 appearances for Tottenham, overtaking Jimmy Greaves to become the club's all-time leading scorer when he netted for the 267th time in Spurs colours against Manchester City last February.
His tally of 213 Premier League goals, meanwhile, puts him just 47 behind the competition's all-time leader Alan Shearer, who scored 260 times for Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United.
Kane is also the most prolific player in England's history, his 62 goals for the Three Lions coming in 89 international appearances.
He memorably missed the chance to surpass Wayne Rooney's previous record of 53 when he blazed a penalty over the crossbar in the Three Lions' quarter-final defeat to France at the 2022 World Cup, only to clinch his place in history in a Euro 2024 qualifier against Italy three months later.
The very first goal of Kane's senior career came in League One during a loan spell with Leyton Orient as they thrashed Sheffield Wednesday 4-0 in January 2011.
That was the first of five goals Kane scored in O's colours, while he also netted nine times in a loan spell with Millwall in 2011-12 and twice during a stint with Leicester City the following season.
IPL: Fraser-McGurk leads the way as Capitals hold off Mumbai
Delhi Capitals withstood Mumbai Indian’s late surge and held on for a 10-run victory at Arun Jaitley Stadium.
Jake Fraser-McGurk top-scored with 84 – hitting 50 off just 15 balls – while Tristan Stubbs (48) and Shai Hope (41) also chipped in with important contributions as the Capitals set a target of 258.
Mukesh Kumar (3/59) and Rasikh Salam (3/34) did their best to halt Mumbai’s revival, but they turned up the pressure to require 25 runs from the final over.
However, despite Luke Wood and Piyush Chawla’s best efforts, Delhi held out for a second successive win.
Data debrief
Wood almost made amends after conceding 68 runs during the opening innings – the joint-most in the IPL this season, matching Reece Topley’s tally against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Tilak Varma led Mumbai’s attempted revival with 63 for his sixth half-century in the IPL, though they have all come in defeats
Chase outdone by opposite number Paudel as West Indies A suffer four-wicket loss to Nepal
West Indies A’s tour of Nepal got off to an unfortunate start, after they suffered a four-wicket loss to their host in a high scoring opening fixture of their five-match Twenty20 series at the Tribhuvan University International Cricket Ground in Kirtipur, on Saturday.
Set a formidable 204 by West Indies A, Nepal’s thrilling victory, which was set up by a captain’s knock from Rohit Paudel, etched their names in the history books, as they successfully got to their target at 206-6 with two balls to spare.
Paudel smashed a 54-ball 112, including 10 fours and two sixes to see his team to a 1-0 lead in the series, which West Indies Head coach Darren Sammy said offers his team a chance to define roles and personnel more clearly for their ICC Men’s T20 World Cup squad.
However, the Caribbean side’s all-round effort was found wanting, as only captain Roston Chase (74), Alick Athanaze (47) and Keacy Carty (38) offered any resistance with the bat, while only Obed McCoy (2-34) and Matthew Forde (2-49) had some semblance of success with the ball.
Scores: West Indies A 204-5 (20 overs); Nepal 206-6 (19.4 overs)
Asked to take first strike, after losing the toss, West Indies A suffered an early blow, as they lost Johnson Charles (zero) off the last ball of the opening over, with 16 runs on the board. Andre Fletcher (13) stuck two sixes off five balls, before he too departed via the run-out route, leaving West Indies A at 43-2 in the fourth over.
However, Athanaze went about business, striking three sixes and five fours in a 25-ball knock, as he put on 43 for the third wicket with Chase, prior to his demise. From there, Chase and Carty added another 60 runs in a fourth-wicket stand that defined the innings.
Carty’s 38 off 26 balls, included two fours and three sixes, while Chase, who anchored the innings with a captain’s knock, struck nine fours and two sixes in his 46-ball 74. Kadeem Alleyne, on 14, and Keemo Paul, one, were left not out.
No Nepal bowler took more than one wicket.
With runs on the board, West Indies A would have felt confident of wrapping up a win, even more so, after Forde and McCoy combined to remove openers Anil Sah (five) and Kushal Bhurtel (16) to have Nepal at 38-2 in the fifth over.
West Indies remained in the ascendancy when Fletcher and Charles combined to run out Kushal Malla (16), leaving their host on the ropes at 82-3 at the halfway mark.
However, Paudel showed class, in not only reviving his team’s innings, but pushed them all the way with some aggressive stroke play, assisted by wayward bowling from West Indies A attack at times. Dipendra Singh Airee (24) offered support to his captain in getting Nepal across the line for a famous victory.
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