India completes formality; England drubs itself again without a fight

England has been completed outplayed and literally raped but with the consent of Indians. That is how one can summarize the Indian ODI series as England were tamed by India to snatch a 5-0 series.

From a score of 129/0 in the 21st over to 176/10 in the 37 overs, Indians took over the center stage from England and showed them the door. On a spinning track, all Jadeja and Ashwin had to do was to bowl on a good line and length for the pitch to do the rest. That the part timers in Raina and Manoj Tiwari had also joined the main force goes to show the nature of the wicket.

MSD was at his best through out the series, with the bat, gloves and captaincy. I was really impressed with his captaincy since he out though the English batsmen on several occasion and yesterday was another example of how he placed the fielders at the right position even when the scoring rate was going beyond 6 runs an over. His batting looked very easy and when there were boundary opportunities, MSD  did exactly that. His overall performance was a perfect reflection of a series in which it had been emphatically turned.  And this rightly earned him the Man of the Series....

At the same time, it has to be said that Vinay Kumar has to be shown the door as he has not impressed the England batsmen at all. I would still have expected Rahul Sharma to come in for Vinay Kumar and I am sure that thought must have come into MSD's mind but that he did not want to expose Aaron too early in the match was justified. Thus India's stars with the ball had to once again be the spinners. Jadeja who claimed 4 for 33 in eight overs and Ashwin, who claimed 3 for 28 off 9 choked England's innings in a sea of slogs and dot-balls. Jadeja was rightly awarded the man of the match.

Earlier, Cook and Keiswetter saved their best performance of the series for the very last gasp. Both had their 50+ to their credit and were consistently 20 runs ahead of the required run rate, without taking much of the risk. Things fell apart like pack of cards once Cook departed. It was the same story once again....

MSD and Indians can relax after their poor show in England. It is again game on now for Indian cricket and with the return of Sachin, Sehwag, Zaheer and Yuvaraj - it seems that India have to rein the world for some more time....But beware India, Rejuvenated Aussies mus have a different idea, for the forth coming series....