India vs. England, Fourth ODI: Review

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Nichael Bluth in 40/50-over

England 220 allout (Bresnan 45; Aaron 3/24, Ashwin 3/28) (46.1/50 overs)

India 223/4 (Kohli 86*, Raina 80; Finn 3/45) (40.1/50 overs)

India win by 6 wickets

 

In a sentence

We used to love the Simpsons. Our teenage years mainly consisted of quoting the best bits, in the misguided hope that this would impress girls. Nowadays, spotting the Simpsons on the planner fills us with sadness. It’s bound to be another of those newer episodes that are so poor they just make us want to hide under a large pile of coats and hope that everything works out okay.

Anyway, this ten-match series is like the Simpsons.

 

Player of the match

England were so poor in this game that even with our relentless bias it’s difficult to give the award to any of our their players. Resting Graeme Swann was hardly a statement of intent to go all out for the win, for a start. India were just miles ahead from start to finish, meaning that the game was finished as a spectacle long before the day’s ridiculously entertaining football got underway. As such let’s just give the award to Suresh Raina for his swashbuckling 80 off 66 balls and move on to a classic Simpsons clip:

 

Moment of the match

In a game that lacked any real ‘wow!’ moments, the best bet for this is probably Varun Aaron’s very impressive final delivery, squaring up England’s least-dismal batsman, the ever-reliable Tim Bresnan, and clipping his off-stump. It was a pretty impressive spell from the debutant, bowling fast and straight and picking up three cheap wickets. Anyway, here’s more Simpsons:

Outlook for Tuesday

England will be desperate to get this series over with. As they’re pretty well paid they’ll almost certainly have all the good series of The Simpsons on DVD, so they’ll be able to watch them on the plane. They may give Graham Onions a game, having dragged him all the way out to India, which will be nice for those of us who enjoy sentimental comebacks. Novices Scott Borthwick and Stuart Meaker will probably get another runout as well, so expect India to win comfortably.

Anyway, it’s always nice to finish with a song: