Cast your minds back to February 2022: the Partygate scandal is in full swing as news breaks of the surprise birthday party held for Boris Johnson two years earlier and four of the prime minister’s top advisers resign; Russia launches a “special military operation” in Ukraine; Adele sweeps artist, song and album of the year awards at the Brits; and India beat West Indies to go to the top of the ICC’s T20 rankings.
Finally, 1,601 days and two World Cup wins later, and after a humbling series of defeats across Ireland and England came to an often calamitous crescendo, they have been usurped. Instead, England end a couple of phenomenal weeks on top of the world.
An extraordinary, and extraordinarily one-sided, series got the ending it deserved, with England scoring a remarkable 257 for three – breaking the record they set in Mumbai in March for the highest total made against India in T20s. Though the tourists’ chase was more impressive than much of their fielding they nevertheless lost by 56 runs and surrendered the series 4-0.
It was, to put it mildly, a tough day to be an India bowler. Jos Buttler, under pressure after 18 innings without a half-century in this format, produced the second-highest score by an Englishman with 131, off 64 deliveries. Harry Brook finished unbeaten on 95, his second-highest score, and it is a marker of his form that of his six fastest-scoring T20 innings of at least 15 balls, three have come in this series.
Of English batters only Phil Salt, twice, and Liam Livingstone have hit more sixes in an innings than the eight Brook and Buttler struck here. Their partnership of 233 was England’s best in T20s, the best against India – by the massive margin of 59 – and the fifth-best in all T20s.
Both were dropped in a ragged, sometimes puzzling and, in its final moments, comic display in the field from India. Buttler had already banked a century when his reprieve came, Suryansh Shedge putting down an easy chance at deep midwicket with the batter on 101 off 52. But Brook had scored three when he top-edged Prince Yadav high to deep third and Shivam Dube ran back a little too enthusiastically, realised he had gone too far and ended up diving backwards, failing even to lay a finger on the ball as it fell to earth.
Brook, with savage inevitability, hit the next two for six (and later, in similar circumstances, returned the favour by dropping Dube).
The England captain was dropped again in the final over, by Ishan Kishan, and England’s innings ended with Brook returning for a wildly optimistic second run that completed only because the fielders were by then completely nonplussed. But peak puzzlement had come in the 19th over when Dube was asked to bowl for the first time, Shreyas Iyer having hidden him from England’s swashbuckling duo for as long as he could before running out of options. Six more or less terrible deliveries brought three sixes, a four and two catches in the deep.
At that stage, India looked a team that had accepted defeat, but these are still world champions and there was a bit of fight in them. They kept pace with England’s scoring through the early stages of their innings, with Sanju Samson – back in place of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi – brutal in racing to 27 off 14 before he rather limply prodded Sam Curran to cover point. With Abhishek Sharma going early for three, they reached halfway on 110 for two, one run fewer and one wicket more than England’s score at the same point.
But Iyer miscued the first ball after drinks to point, that over – from Liam Dawson – went for five and from there the game rapidly slipped out of their control. Half-centuries from Kishan, who scored 56 off 35, and Tilak Varma (53 off 25) helped India avoid humiliation if not, given this team’s status and ambition, severe embarrassment.
