Nottingham: England squandered away a good start as the Indian spinners restricted the hosts to 227 all out in 50 overs against India in the third one-day International, here today.
Put into bat, England started on a brisk note courtesy an 82-run opening partnership between Alastair Cook (44) and Alex Hales (42) but the spinners checked their surge by picking up wickets at regular intervals.
Hales, playing his first ODI in front of his home crowd, was caught behind off part-time spinner Suresh Raina (1-37) while Cook was stumped off the bowling of Ambati Rayudu (1-8).
Spinners continued to have a field day as left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja (1-38) got Joe Root stumped for 2 while off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin (3-39) got Eoin Morgan caught behind for 10.
Ian Bell (28) hung around for a while only to be run out at the non-strikers end as Mohit Sharma's direct throw caught the batsman well short of his ground.
Ashwin got another wicket after Raina took a beautiful swooping one-handed catch at first slip to send Ben Stokes out for 2.
Mohammed Shami (1-40) also joined the party after picking up Chris Woakes for 15 as the hosts slipped further.
Wicketkeeper-batsman Jos Buttler (42) showed some grit but failed to read Ashwin's off spin in the 48th over to give the bowler his third wicket.
James Tredwell (30 off 18 balls) played a brisk cameo in the final overs to give England some respectability as the left-hander hit three fours and a six to help England snatch 18 runs from the last over of the innings.
Tredwell though was caught and bowled off Bhuvneshwar Kumar (1-45) on the penultimate delivery while Steve Finn was run out on the final ball.
England did manage to hit 45 runs in the last 5 overs but considering their good start, the hosts may have fallen well short of a competitive score on this Trent Bridge track.
