Former England batter Mark Butcher believes Indian skipper Shubman Gill took the pitch out of the question and fooled all the experts into thinking that the Sophia Gardens, Cardiff is a belter. Gill gave a brisk start to the team, scoring fluent drives in 31 runs off 30 balls with the help of six fours.

The flamboyant batter unfortunately smoked the ball straight to cover, Ben Duckett and he was gutted after his dismissal. India was eventually bowled out for 233, which turned out to be a below-par score.

Earlier, Gill had scored a brilliant knock of 80 runs in the opening ODI at Edgbaston, Birmingham on Tuesday.

Butcher said on Sky Sports, “Given what we’ve seen and with even Joe Root struggling on 4 runs from 20 balls, there was real difficulty for the batters. It was hard to judge the pace onto the bat and bounce. So 234 was probably a decent score in the end. It just didn’t look like it because of the way Shubman Gill played at the very beginning. He is in such wonderful form that he was banging it all over the place and fooled us all into thinking that this was a belter. Once he was gone, we could see how difficult scoring runs was in the middle.”

On the other hand, former Indian head coach Ravi Shastri reckons the game could have been a bit more tighter if India had managed one more wicket in the Powerplay overs.

“Gill’s bowling changes were good and Bumrah was outstanding again. If India had another wicket in powerplay, this game would have been tighter. The match was in the balance at the halfway stage but full marks to Joe Root as he took England through with very good late partnerships,” said Shastri (via the aforementioned source).

The decider of the three-match series between England and India will be played at Lord’s on Sunday.