After outplaying India on a surface that offered consistent pace and bounce in the first T20I of the series, England were returned the favour by the hosts on almost a completely different surface in the second game at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
The pitch for the second T20I of the series offered variable bounce and Indian bowlers picked it quite clear that taking the pace off the ball held the key on such a surface. Hence, they employed tactics of bowling cutters and slower balls to check England’s batsmen in the latter half of the innings.
The outcome of the game along with the failure of players to adapt to different conditions on ‘typical Indian pitch’ as the skipper Eoin Morgan suggested could have been disappointing for the tourists who take pride in their standings as the best white-ball side in the world.
However, Morgan chose to see the larger picture and underlined the need of playing more and more cricket on similar surfaces as they have their eyes on the big prize of the World T20 slated to be played in India.
"I thought the other night, the pitch really suited us because it had more pace in it - similar to a wicket at home, a Cardiff wicket or somewhere like that, that was a little bit uneven and maybe stood up a little bit. But this took us out of our comfort zone and really was a typical Indian wicket that we would play on in an IPL game. Again, your accuracy has to be on, and you're bowling to guys really on their home patch when you talk about a wicket like this.
He said that England have to improve their aspect of learning to play on such surfaces through harder ways in order to give themselves the best chance when they will return for the T20 World Cup.
"To become better in these conditions, the only way you do that is by playing and making mistakes. You tend to learn quicker if you're winning and confident and everything goes reasonably smoothly - you can integrate the learning quite quickly - but equally, if we have to learn the hard way, we're still going through that process of trying to learn game-on-game so when it comes to the World Cup in seven months' time, we can be as best prepared or know more about ourselves and where we need to get better before then." Morgan stated.
Morgan conceded that India put them under serious pressure and dragged them out of their comfort zone on a pitch they have not been able to conquer even when the team is on an upward curve in the white-ball formats. He lamented missed opportunities as England had players settled at the crease to go for expansive shots in the last part of the batting innings, but regular fall of wickets made life tougher for batsmen to go big from the word go.
"It was quite slow, low, and didn't really turn a great deal - that does expose our weakness," Morgan said. "We don't play a lot on slow, low wickets and the more that we can do that, the better. Posting a total on a wicket like that, I thought we were right in the game… we established partnerships, we got to the point where we tried to accelerate, but managed to lose wickets at different stages."
An all-important toss did not go in England’s favour as well on the Sunday night as Morgan realised the balls were coming onto the bat nicely in the second innings which was not the case when his batsmen were batting.
India won the toss and sent England under pressure on a sluggish pitch to level the series. But for England Morgan, the loss does not mean as much as the preparations for the World T20 which has been and will be the theme of the white-ball leg of the series.