IND vs ENG: Varun Chakravarthy shines in India player ratings, but Samson, Suryakumar and others fall short

England stormed back to register a 26-run win and consign India to their first defeat of the series on Tuesday. Ben Duckett and Liam Livingstone were the stars of their batting show, with Livingstone’s knock, in particular, allowing England to recover from a collapse and post a healthy total.

India got off to a decent start but soon crumbled under the pressure of the asking rate. Hardik Pandya top-scored with 40 but none of the other batters managed to go past 24, largely due to Adil Rashid’s brilliance with the ball.

Here is how the Indian players fared:

Aced the test: Varun Chakravarthy

This is getting a little robotic now. Every T20I, Chakravarthy seems to do the same things. He comes on, looks at the batter, rummages through his variations, and dares them to pick it and do something productive with it – all of it with the supreme confidence that in the end, he will be the one to come out on top.

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Tuesday was another classic example. England had built up a head of steam and were eyeing a sixty-plus score in the powerplay. Chakravarthy arrived and bowled a three-run sixth over, before returning to outfox Jos Buttler in the ninth.

Smith was the next to fall to Chakravarthy. Overton was then castled and Carse was holed out in the deep with both of them, like several others before them, trying and failing with ambitiously cavalier strokes.

And Chakravarthy added the final exclamation mark with a beautifully-disguised googly, which had Archer searching for the ball in Chennai while it fizzed into his stumps in Rajkot. Another great day’s work for Chakravarthy, and a day of work that increasingly feels like the norm, rather than an anomaly.

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Partially met expectations: Mohammed Shami, Abhishek Sharma, Axar Patel, Hardik Pandya, Tilak Varma

There was a hush around the ground and the country as Shami ran in to bowl his first ball in international cricket since November 19, 2023. And, like clockwork, he got the ball to swing and seam, inducing a couple of false strokes in the process.

Rustiness crept in later and he even bowled a beamer that nearly took Mark Wood’s head out. But it was a promising overall display, with encouragement that once he gets through more overs, he could be back to the Mohammed Shami batters dread.

Abhishek, who has instilled fear into oppositions himself, had England frantically searching for answers as he carved the ball to all parts. But England found a solution off the 14th ball Abhishek faced, bringing a sprightly cameo to an end. That was exactly what it was, though: a cameo, and Abhishek will be disappointed at having not made that start count.

Which is precisely the emotion that might have engulfed Tilak. He began in Rajkot the way he finished in Chennai: looking in pristine touch. The ball pinged off the middle of his bat and it took a magical Adil Rashid delivery – pitching-outside-off-ripping-back-to-hit-middle – to burst through his defence and make India look for a different hero.

Hardik could have been that hero for India. He strode out at five, with the game crying out to be seized. Rather than taking the initiative, however, he retreated into his shell. He might have wanted to take the game deep but with India’s batting depth and given how progressively difficult batting seemed to get, Hardik perhaps miscalculated.

It was not a horrid day at the office entirely. Earlier, he bowled his entire quota and accounted for Livingstone and Salt – two wickets that seemed momentum-shifting moments when they came about.

Axar, too, curbed England’s run-scoring and barely offered them any getaways. And when Duckett tried to manufacture something, he perished. It was a different story with the bat, though. Axar struggled for rhythm and failed to find the fence regularly enough. While he would have wanted to make this chance count, much of India’s run-chase was dented long before he arrived.

Did not meet expectations: Sanju Samson, Suryakumar Yadav, Dhruv Jurel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi

Samson has been an enigmatic figure since his international debut. When he is on song, there are few better sights in world cricket. But on other days, he has a tendency to frustrate. Tuesday fell into the latter category.

England showed their hand early and went into the body, not for the first time. And Samson fell trying to swipe to the leg-side (not for the first time either). There is, of course, no denying Samson’s stroke-making ability. Nor his propensity to make top bowlers look ordinary.

But expecting different results, while making the same mistakes, even when the opposition is scheming with a peculiarly similar one-card trick, is not a great look either.

Jurel, on the other hand, walked into an unenviable situation, with 49 needed off 16 balls. To be fair to him, he tried. But because he could not manage even a single boundary, he finds himself in this bracket again. Alongside…

Bishnoi, who endured an evening to forget. He snuck through Brook’s sweep but was taken apart by Livingstone in the 17th over, which ultimately helped England cross the 170-run mark, despite seeming destined for a sub-160 score at one point.

As for Washington, well, everything that could have gone wrong for him, went wrong. He bowled a solitary over, shipped 15 and scratched around for 15 balls with the bat, only mustering six runs. In a chase where the required-run rate had jumped up to more than ten.

The perfect application of Murphy’s Law in T20 cricket, some would say.

And now, finally to India’s skipper. Like Chennai, there were a couple of trademark Suryakumar strokes but he did not last long enough to truly make an impact. Being captain, he might feel that he has to lead the way with his intent and maintain their ultra-aggressive approach irrespective of the situation.

But all of India, right now, could do with a few more runs from his blade.