England need to pull up their socks

England must pull up their socks otherwise they will receive another sound thrashing at the hands of India, with or without Yuvraj Singh

INDORE: Things haven’t panned out the way Kevin Pietersen would have liked during this tour of India. Pietersen is always calm and composed. So there was nothing on view to suggest that the 158-run defeat in the first one-dayer at Rajkot rattled him. KP as he is popularly known will have enough to worry about though.

James Anderson and Stuart Broad didn’t take a wicket between them and gave away 126 runs. In contrast, Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel combined to dismiss four of England’s top-order batsman within 11 overs. Yuvraj Singh’s blitzkrieg was the biggest difference between both the sides. A final call on whether or not Yuvraj’s back is fit enough for the battle will be taken on Monday morning.

However, even if Yuvraj doesn’t play India have enough hitters in the middle-order, namely Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma and skipper MS Dhoni, to pile on the runs. If Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir can stick around for 15 overs then no score would seem beyond this batting line-up. 

This England team beat South Africa 4-0 at home but they also lost to a Mumbai XI side by 124 runs in a warm-up game. While Pietersen & Co. worked hard in the nets, it waits to be seen if they can show heart to fight back after the humiliating defeat in Rajkot.

Virat Kohli, India’s Under-19 World Cup winning skipper will take Yuvraj’s place if the Man-of-the-Match of the first ODI is unfit.

“Well, there is improvement in Yuvi’s case but the final call will be taken before the game,” Dhoni said on the eve of the game. Fast bowler Ishant Sharma too is likely to be rested for at least another game. “There is a very good chance that we might rest Ishant for one more game so that he gets a break of six to seven days. He may be rested for the next two matches,” Dhoni added.

Fast bowler Zaheer Khan and off-spinner Harbhajan Singh chose to rest on Sunday. Dhoni said: “It was an optional session since we have played quite a bit over the past few weeks and we thought it would be better to give rest to some of the players.”

As far as England team is concerned there is good news as their strike bowler Ryan Sidebottom has recovered from a sore Achillies tendon and might take the field on Monday. 

Paul Collingwood said that England that was keen to hit back strongly after the drubbing. “The great thing about this side is that we know that we can definitely bounce back. We took a bit of a battering the other day. But the morale of the side is very high. We know what to do. We have been in this position before,” said Collingwood.

The wicket at the Maharani Usha Raje Stadium could behave differently to the flat track that was laid out in Rajkot. “This wicket is a bit slow and low and a bit dry. It might help the spinners but these are just predictions,” said Dhoni on the wicket.

If India can make it two wins out of two then it will take a very special effort from England to make a comeback. England will have to come out all guns firing here or else they could go into a tailspin.