England’s fragility when facing wrist-spin was openly acknowledged by one-day captain Eoin Morgan following a defeat that was largely down to a fantastic spell from Kuldeep Yadav.
Yadav, who will be hoping to feature in the Test series later this summer, took six wickets for just 25 runs in his 10 overs – the best figures returned by a left-arm spinner in ODI history.
India won the game by eight wickets with just under 10 overs left on Thursday night, yet Morgan was surprisingly upbeat despite the nature of the loss. “He is very good and there is no getting around that,” said Morgan. “He exposes an area of our game that we need to improve on and I think that is a good thing and a healthy thing.’
“There is only one left-arm [wrist-spin] bowler in the world, it is not a huge concern. You play against one team and he happens to be very good, he is not any old left-arm [wrist-spinner]. We have played great cricket for the last six months and not come up against anybody like this so it is a chance to improve on this area however long it might take between now and the World Cup.”
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Morgan is already adamant that this series against India is of more use when it comes to preparing for next year’s tournament than the 5-0 drubbing of Australia. “This was definitely a more useful experience than beating Australia. Finding yourself coming up against something that is rare, it is like facing a right-arm leg-spinner who is very good, you don’t come against many of them but when you do you need to adapt and think on your feet, so it is always a good challenge.”