England v India: second men’s one-day cricket international - live

Key events

The players are out there and Jofra Archer has the ball. He’s having to do a lot of work these days.

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The first email comes from an old friend. “At least,” says Brian Withington, “today’s match format denies any opportunity to play Tuchelball by parking the bus with ill-judged defensive substitutions mid-game, even in the most unlikely event of England’s other foreign coach being tempted to exhibit such craven behaviour.

”Unlike in Test cricket, you can’t even pack the boundary areas either and desperately try to buy a wicket with a barrage of short stuff. Just need to get the selection right up front, play well, be brave and demonstrate astute captaincy throughout. Easy game really.

”What could possibly go wrong?”

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Updated at 07.56 EDT

England have a problem – well, lots of them, but the most pressing one is at the top of the order. They have somehow turned Ben Duckett into Alastair Cook, making steady runs while his opening partners come and go.

Since Brendon McCullum took over the 50-over team in September 2024, Duckett has played 24 games and made about a thousand runs (993 at an average of 41). His partners in those games have done about half as well (510 at 21). Duckett has passed fifty eight times, the rest only three times. There have been five of them – Phil Salt, Jamie Smith, Zak Crawley, Rehan Ahmed and now Jacob Bethell – and only the first two have had a decent run, though Bethell may yet get one

Bethell was all at sea on Tuesday, trudging to 14 off 33 balls, and he does seem a strange choice, given that he’s a left-hander like Duckett. As Mike Atherton has just pointed out on Sky, England players seldom appear in 50-over cricket for their counties, so someone like Bethell is having to learn the ropes on the big stage. It will be impressive if he can make 40 today.

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The sponsors’ mat that comes out for the toss was carrying an unexpected logo oday: the tongue that represents the Rolling Stones. “One of the iconic bands of the world,” said Ravi Shastri, sounding a little out of his comfort zone.

“No shit, Shastri,” muttered a cricket writer who also does music reviews.

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Teams in brief: Dawson ditched, Rahul indisposed

England make two changes and tacitly admit that they got it wrong at Edgbaston by replacing a spinner with a seamer. In come Gus Atkinson and Saqib Mahmood; out go Josh Tongue and Liam Dawson, whose batting may be sorely missed.

For India, there’s just one change and it's enforced. KL Rahul, who is unwell, hands the wicketkeeping gloves to Ishan Kishan.

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Toss: England win and bowl first

Shubman Gill calls wrong and Harry Brook opts to have a bowl on a ground where chasing tends to be the way to go. Gill says he would have bowled first too.

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Preamble

Afternoon everyone, or is it still the morning after the night before? There’s only one way to cope with sporting heartbreak and that is to get back on the horse. You may wonder whether a bilateral ODI, quite likely to be forgotten by next week, can heal the wounds of a World Cup semi-final in which England’s German manager threw away a lead and became more English than the English. But maybe it can provide a distraction, and at least we know that today the England coach won’t be indefensibly defensive.

This is a game that has to be won, or the three-match series will be gone in three days flat. Harry Brook and Brendon McCullum, so successful in T20s (bar the odd World Cup semi-final), haven’t come close to mastering the 50-over game. On Tuesday at Edgbaston they made a big mistake, picking three spinners on a surface that was crying out for four seamers. Brook confirmed it by bowling his three seamers out and barely using Liam Dawson, who might have thought it was going to be his day after making his first international fifty.

It wasn’t all down to that misreading of the pitch. India’s old guns, led by the great Jasprit Bumrah, made far steelier foes than their young blades. God help England when Rohit, Virat and Rahul add some runs to their magisterial presence. But England have the blazing talent of Brook, and the quiet excellence of Joe Root, and surely their middle order can’t be quite that flaky again.

Play starts at 1pm and the forecast, I regret to report, is for yet more of this tedious sunshine.

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Updated at 07.02 EDT

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