India continued their dominant run over England and registered a thumping four-wicket win in the second ODI on Sunday. Playing in Cuttack, the hosts displayed another brilliant performance to gain an unassailable 2-0 lead over England in the three-match series. The biggest positive for India came with skipper Rohit Sharma, who battled through his lean patch and hammered his 32nd ODI century as the hosts chased down the target of 305 in 44.3 overs. However, star batter Virat Kohli registered yet another dismal show, fetching only five runs off eight balls.
Kohli was dismissed in the 20th over by Adil Rashid as the star spinner trapped the Indian star at his biggest weakness – the outside edge. Kohli got bamboozled by the spin as the ball touched the outside edge and wicketkeeper Phil Salt made no mistake and grabbed a brilliant catch behind the stumps.
As Kohli made his way back to the dugout, many of his fans were left heartbroken and blamed England skipper Jos Buttler for his dismissal. Just one ball before the dismissal, Kohli played a towards point on another outside off delivery from Rashid.
The ball went towards Buttler, who collected it and ended up throwing it back at Kohli. He quickly raised his hand in apology. The Indian batter acknowledged his apology by raising his hand too.
However, Kohli’s fans did not take this moment lightly as they took to social media and blamed Buttler for intentionally breaking Kohli’s concentration.
That intentional throw at Virat Kohli by Jos Butler led to loss of concentration of Kohli.
I’m sure they’ll feel the heat during IPL.
Now upto ‘Mumbai Lobby’ to ensure a comfortable win for India.
— Akash Agrawal (@AkashAgrawal_1) February 9, 2025
After the match, Buttler praised Rohit for the match-winning century and stated that his batters need to pump up their game, to bounce back.
“I thought we did a lot of things well, we got into a nice position with the bat. We needed someone to push on and get us to 350. Credit to Rohit, he batted superbly, he has been batting like this for a few years in ODI cricket. Wanted to get runs on the board, it skidded on a bit and the opposition also played well,” said Buttler during the post-match presentation.
“We played the powerplay brilliantly, we needed someone to kick on and a score around 330-350 would have been defendable. Just keep taking steps in the right direction, the results are not there but we need to keep going and be positive,” he added.
The third and final ODI of the three-match series will be played on Wednesday in Ahmedabad.
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