Former Indian batter Abhinav Mukund has noted that there is a pattern to Indian batters’ dismissals while facing the short-pitch deliveries on the England tour. India was bowled out for 233 runs in the second ODI at Sophia Gardens, Cardiff, after getting off to a decent start and eventually suffered a four-wicket loss.

Virat Kohli, Ishan Kishan, Washington Sundar and Axar Patel were all dismissed on short-pitched deliveries. Indian batters were particularly troubled by Jofra Archer, who returned with figures of 3-47 in his 10 overs after Harry Brook decided to bowl first.

Abhinav Mukund said on Cricinfo, “It’s been a pattern for the entire series – England peppering India with short pitch stuff on grounds that have bigger square boundaries, where the pull shots are not going out of the ground. England’s bowlers have been extremely effective with the usage of the short pitch delivery and I think Archer has been brilliant. Virat got caught out and then you had two more dismissals to the short pitch stuff.”

The former Tamil Nadu batter reckons Indian bowlers bowled better than English bowlers on Thursday, but the result didn’t go their way.

“To be fair, I felt India’s pacers bowled better than the English pacers because their new ball spell was better. The usage of the short ball in the final spell from Gurnoor Brar, all of it were very big tick boxes for me. I felt England did not bowl well in the first 10. Unfortunately for India, the second spell, where both Mahmood and Atkinson and Archer, all of them came back, ended up getting a lot of wickets.”

The trio of Jasprit Bumrah, Prasidh Krishna and Gurnoor Brar was also right on the money but England was able to get over the line after Joe Root scored an unbeaten 99.

The decider of the three-match series between England and India will be played at Lord’s on Sunday.