England thrash India by nine wickets to take commanding series lead

England’s recent heatwave continued in Bristol, India wilting to lose their cool, the game and the series in what turned into another bizarrely one-sided encounter. Timid with the bat, poor in the field, error-prone with the ball and swift to accept the inevitability of defeat, this was a complete horror show from the world champions and a performance of complete dominance from Harry Brook’s burgeoning team, who won by nine wickets and will overtake their opponents as world No1 if they win the final game of the series in Southampton on Saturday.

Two days earlier it was England’s bowlers who shredded their opponents on their way to a 125-run win at Trent Bridge. This time, well as their bowlers performed to limit India to 159, it was their batters – and one of them in particular. Chasing an obviously under-par total, England started slowly and awkwardly and Jos Buttler was dismissed early for eight – the former captain’s form is a genuine issue, and he has not scored an international half-century in this format since the Old Trafford runfest against South Africa last September, a run of 18 innings in which he has averaged just 15.16. But his departure brought out his successor, Brook scooped his second ball for six, and from that moment there was no stopping him.

He and Phil Salt stayed together to finish the job, though Salt’s innings started poorly, and after nine deliveries he was yet to get off the mark. To this, India reacted not with ruthlessness but with charity, with no-balls in both the fourth and fifth overs presenting him with free hits and lifting the pressure. Having scored none off nine, after 19 he was on 26, and after 34 he had a half-century.

Brook got there well before him, sending a huge six down the ground off Axar Patel to reach the mark off his 21st delivery. This came midway through a three-over period that turned a game that was probably going England’s way into one they could not lose: a required run rate that had dipped just below seven at the end of the powerplay was under six when the eighth over – from Washington Sundar, brought into the team for this game and bowling for the first time in the series – went for 19, under five when Axar’s ninth went for 18, and under four when Shivam Dube’s 10th went for 15. In these three overs alone Brook hit eight boundaries including two sixes. His was a marvellous innings, awe-inspiring at times, and he continued to power his team towards increasingly inevitable victory until the 14th over, when he backed away and, off the back foot, hit Arshdeep Singh down the ground for his fourth and final six. Three balls later it was over, Brook having scored 79 off just 35.

At the toss – like every other one in this series won by Shreyas Iyer – India’s captain promised that there would be no let-up in his side’s “fearless” approach despite the calamity it brought them at Trent Bridge. But as their innings began it was not caution they were throwing to the wind, but the ball. Other than a fine uppercut from Vaibhav Sooryavanshi off Josh Tongue, which assisted by a short boundary flew into the crowd, they seemed unable to hit the ball into the air without it going so high that by the time it returned to earth a fielder had settled under it with hands cupped.

For the first time in a senior international career still only three games old Sooryavanshi scored as many runs as he has lived years – 15 – but then top-edged Jofra Archer to mid-on in the third over. Another fast, short ball accounted for Ishan Kishan, who having scored just four took a wild swipe at a Tongue delivery and sent it steepling to Sam Curran at short third. India thus ended the powerplay on 44 for two, and in the next over Abhishek Sharma hit Adil Rashid to where short midwicket might have been, the ball spending so long in the air on its journey that the bowler got there in plenty of time to collect the catch.

At this point India promoted Shivam Dube, who on Tuesday had come in at No 8, to five and the all-rounder’s perceived strength against spin forced England to return to their seamers. Archer, Tongue and Curran all had a go at getting him out, without reward or particular punishment, at which point there was no choice but to give the twirlers a spin, and he didn’t punish them either. A partnership of 53 off 43 with Iyer was, like much of India’s innings, disconcertingly pedestrian. Fearless it certainly was not. Iyer ended with 80 off 49, his second half-century of a series that has otherwise given India’s new captain nothing but trouble.