Three-one after one-three

However, Joe Root, a south Yorkshire lad, did it both for himself, Alastair Cook and England, cracking a second ODI ton to burnish his credentials as the finest batting talent in the country, help the team notch a consolatory 50-overs victory and give a little breathing space to his captain. Root’s 108-ball 113, the hosts’ only ton of the ODI series, guided the team to 294 for seven. Seriously tested for the first time in the series, India ended up 41 runs short — the margin of the defeat made rather respectable by Ravindra Jadeja’s belligerent 68-ball 87 towards the end.

“That’s a far better performance, and that’s what we can play like,” Cook said in the post-match presentation. “It’s frustrating not to play like that before. Joe showed what he can do and that’s what we’ve been missing in our batting. We’ve got a lot of 20s and 30s, the first time a guy goes on and gets a hundred we have a better chance. You saw how hard it was to chase down 300. We just played better, we didn’t want to lose 4-0.”

There was no doubt that India were going for 4-0. An intent that was made fairly evident when MS Dhoni announced the XI at the time of the toss. India were fielding a full-strength team, with Umesh Yadav coming in for Dhawal Kulkarni. In any case, a clean sweep was there for the taking, with England having gone from bad to worse to utterly ridiculous in the previous three games. Dhoni guessed it right and sent England in, like he had at Edgbaston and Trent Bridge and out came the under-fire skipper and Alex Hales.

Welcome respite

A batting failure here coupled with a defeat and Cook’s ODI captaincy would have come under further criticism. Add to that a 10:30 am start in Leeds, with a bit of moisture, grass and bounce on the pitch. Safe to assume the pressure must have been overbearing. But as early as the first over, the left-hander made it clear if he was going to get out, he wasn’t going to go without a fight. He began with two sweetly timed boundaries towards point off Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

However, two quick wickets of Hales and Moeen Ali put the brakes on England’s scoring. Aggression wasn’t an option now. It was time to rebuild. Cook added 52 runs with Root to take England to 91 for two in the 20th over. But he fell four short of a half century, when an attempted sweep off part-timer Suresh Raina went straight into Dhoni’s hands. Above the din, the batsman must have heard the sound of knives sharpening. Then Eoin Morgan fell cheaply to Ravichandran Ashwin to leave England, at 117 for four after 29 overs, in an all-too-familiar hole.

But Root and Jos Buttler did what England haven’t in the limited-overs leg of the tour: fight back. It was actually Buttler who first showed the way. He went after the Indian bowlers in the batting powerplay — an area where England have been hopelessly miserable of late. With a six and a four, paceman Yadav gave away 14 runs in the first powerplay over, two more than what England had made in all five in Nottingham.

Productive powerplay

Together, Root and Buttler plundered 55 runs between the 36th and 40th overs to set the stage for a near-300 total. The latter fell one short of his half-century, but Root carried on. He used the slog sweep to deadly effect, disturbing the Indian spinners’ lengths. With a six off Jadeja he brought up his century and became the first Yorkshire batsman to hit both a Test and an ODI hundred at this ground.

After Root’s dismissal off Mohammed Shami’s bowling, the hitherto quiet Ben Stokes provided the late flourish as England ended just short of 300. In the last 25 overs, England made 186 runs.

India’s response wasn’t ideal as they set about chasing what was their first challenging target in the series. They were off to a most nightmarish start when their centurion from the last match, Ajinkya Rahane, was out in just the third ball of the match. He prodded at an away going James Anderson ball and sent it straight to Morgan at covers. Virat Kohli played a few confident shots to start off with but his innings and his English summer ended the way it had begun — caught in the cordon off Anderson.

Shikhar Dhawan went for one shot too many and was clean up by Moeen Ali, leaving India at 49/3 after 14 overs. Ambati Rayudu struck his second fifty off the series and Jadeja then provided some spark down the order, but India were never really in it. Still, it might not have been their day but it was their evening. Match over, they celebrated hard with champagne and the trophy. Both England and India’s fans went home happy — one relieved at a series win, the other satisfied with a consolation ODI victory.

And a two-faced tour had all but ended the way it had begun, with a reversal of the scoreline from the Test series.