Bhubaneswar: Fifty-Fifty cricket returns to Barabati after 6-long years, when India will be squaring off with England for the 2nd ODI of the three-game series on Sunday here in Cuttack.
The men in blue have tasted the first flesh in the first one-dayer at Nagpur. India convincingly defeated the visitors by 4 wickets by virtue of fifties from Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel and Shubman Gill. Harshit Rana and veteran Ravindra Jadeja shared six wickets to spoil the England's party.
The Nagpur one-dayer showed England captain Jos Buttler and batsman all-rounder Jacob Bethell are in super form. It also sheds light on how the touring side’s medium fast bowler Saqib Mahmood and spinner Adil Rashid had a good show on Indian pitches.
THE BARABATI PITCH
Barabati Stadium in Cuttack is considered a paradise for spinners, though the pitch offers some variable bounce to fast medium pacers as well, especially once the ball gets semi-new after the first spells.
This hints big. Opening batsman can score runs briskly when the new ball overs will be done by medium fast bowlers. If the openers score 10-15 runs per over in the first 10 hours, the side will host a big total.
Because, the pitch will start troubling batsman much as the ball gets bit older, making it difficult to score runs.
SPINNERS PARADISE
As the Barbati Pitch report shows the ground is a paradise for the flippers, India is likely to play with three spinners. Though England team has 4 spinners, it remains to be seen will the team management play only three or two spinners in the Barabati game.
TOSS WINNER MAY BE MATCH WINNER
Luck has a role in deciding winner in cricket. The toss winning captain seizes the first initiative of winning the match by taking the crucial decision of batting first or second.
THE BARABATI HISTORY
The hoary stadium of Odisha has hosted 38 one-day international matches between 1982 and 2019.
As far as the records of teams are concerned, India played 17 matches here. Of which, it has won 13 matches here, which shows it had won in 76% of matches it played.
India played its last match on December 22, 2019. The hosts had beaten West Indies by scoring 316 runs chasing West Indies 315 run target.
BARABTI HOSTS HIGH SCORING MATCHES
The runs scored in the last one-dayer played here clearly suggest that this Barbati stadium in Cuttack has the history of throwing high scoring matches.
On the contrary, England had played only 6 matches. They played their last match in 2017. And as they had won in 3 and lost 3, their win-loss chance here seems fifty-fifty.
England played its last match against India on Jan 19, 2017. And India batting first scored a mammoth 381 runs, England chased well but could score only 366 runs.
The match summaries of the last two matches show that a team batting first can post big totals on board.
A study of the Barabati one-dayer match history shows India had won matches batting first or bowling first.
But the significant hint Barabati gives is in dewy atmospheres team batting second faces big defeat.
As the dewy environment seems likely Sunday, all eyes are on the toss.
