Pakistan await in Melbourne on Sunday and will not have enjoyed what they saw of their opponents here. England reached 170 with 10 wickets and four overs to spare, Hales (who scored 86 from 47) and Buttler (80 from 49) producing not just the greatest but by any measure you like the greatest opening partnership in history of England Twenty20. By the end, India were a ruckus, their performance summed up by England hitting an all-run four, an all-out rarity in this format, after Mohammed Shami ran down the field and tried to throw the ball to a team-mate but missed, and by Suryakumar Yadav who came back from mid off and not only failed to catch Buttler but managed to shovel the ball another 10 yards short of the rope. Poor Phil Salt, he was slated to come in at No. 3 but wasn’t needed. Having watched every game so far from the sidelines, he was selected to replace Dawid Malan but had to watch most of the game from the sidelines. It is now impossible to question England’s decision to favor Hales as opener, and since they have reached a position where they must win every remaining match, he has scored 52, 47 and now 86 at a strike average of 158. This was an extremely controlled innings. , in which he scored with great pace but appeared unhurried, and his best shots were not only elegant in their execution but impeccable in their timing. India, for example, would have hoped to use their spinners to check England’s run-rate, but twice, against Axar Patel and Ravichandran Ashwin, Hales dismissed that idea by sending a slog-sweep into the crowd. Meanwhile, Buttler had promised that he would not fear Bhuvneshwar Kumar, against whom he previously had a very poor record. He scored 13 runs off the seven balls he faced from the 32-year-old, smashing three blocks off the bowler’s first over, and after the second ended with Hales dancing across the wicket to hit long off for six Kumar was sent to the field on the boundary, for never to return. As soon as the finish line appeared, Butler made a run for it. after scoring 45 from his first 34 deliveries, he added 35 from the last 15, including six overs. The ground that saw England’s worst moment in white-ball cricket, against Bangladesh in 2015, has thus seen what is perhaps only the 2019 World Cup final away from its best. This was a night when a team that hadn’t really hit top gear at any stage of this tournament suddenly became supersonic. Although Virat Kohli scored another half-century, it was Hardik Pandya, with a 63-ball 33, who was most responsible for bringing India to a reasonable total with a string of boundaries towards the innings end – and will there were one more he hadn’t stepped on the stumps while feeding the last ball towards the rope. But instead of terrorizing England, his innings only inspired hope – Buttler said afterwards that Pandya had just “shown how good he was”. England’s Josh Buttler (left) and Alex Hales walk off the field after their semi-final win against India. Photo: James Elsby/AP Pandya’s innings at least turned a sheer humiliation into a mere emphatic thump. For much of their 20 overs, India were simply pedestrian, both soothed by some excellent bowling – Adil Rashid was outstanding, going to five an over and taking the key wicket of Yadav, and Chris Jordan replacing the injured Mark Wood and took three wickets in his own first game of the tournament – and some puzzling lack of ambition with the bat. Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers’ thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week’s action Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. England’s previous three chases in the competition, against Afghanistan, Ireland and Sri Lanka, had all been uncomfortable, but this was a team in transformation. They took a completely different approach in their innings in India as they tried to score quite quickly at the start. They still had 10 balls of the powerplay left when they matched India’s total at six. They reached 50 off their 29th ball when India had been bowled out for 43. At the halfway mark India had scored 62 off 60 balls. England were at 98. It was a spectacular vindication of Buttler’s toss decision to chase, which while his instincts more often than not dovetailed with the new consensus that has arrived in this tournament. That consensus seemed to inform India’s innings – only one team here, and none in the Super 12s, had successfully chased more than 160, so 168 would have been an outstanding score. England on the other hand have been salivating over the state of the wicket for three days and thought there might be more runs in it. Turns out they were right.
