India landed in Belfast on 26 June. They arrive at Lord’s on Sunday with one win from the entire trip.
Two T20Is in Ireland: lost both. Five T20Is in England: one washed out, four lost. Three ODIs: one won, one lost, and now a decider at the Home of Cricket. That is the tour. Sunday is all that’s left of it, and it will determine whether this is remembered as a bad summer or a catastrophic one.
What the T20Is did to them
It’s worth being blunt about the state India arrived in for the 50-over leg.
The T20I series was a 4-0 rout, and the manner of the finish at the Rose Bowl will follow this squad for a while. Jos Buttler made 131 from 64 balls with 12 fours and eight sixes. Harry Brook made 95 not out from 45. Together they put on 233 in 103 deliveries — a record England second-wicket stand — and England posted 257 for 3, their highest total against India. Needing what would have been the second-highest chase in T20I history, India dropped three catches, misfielded repeatedly, and made 201 for 8 despite fifties from Ishan Kishan and Tilak Varma. Sam Curran took 3 for 36.
England took India’s No. 1 T20I ranking off them that night. Brook took the player-of-the-series award with 229 runs. And India became the first team in their history to go winless through a bilateral T20I series of four matches or more — in Shreyas Iyer’s first assignment as captain, after he’d taken over from Suryakumar Yadav.
That’s the backdrop. The ODI side is a different animal: older, deeper, and with Jasprit Bumrah back.
Edgbaston: the reset that worked
England batted first and got themselves into trouble in the middle overs, losing five wickets for 20 runs, recovering to 258 all out in 47.5 only through Joe Root’s unbeaten 76 and Liam Dawson’s 68. Axar Patel took 4 for 62. Bumrah, playing his first ODI since the 2023 World Cup final, looked immediately like himself and took one. Josh Tongue made his ODI debut and finished with 1 for 50.
India chased 259 with 28 balls to spare. Shubman Gill made a captain’s 80 before retiring hurt with cramps — he’d been the one batter to get away early. India then lost three wickets for 11 runs and wobbled at 160 for 4, at which point Axar, on his way to 57 not out, and Washington Sundar, 52 not out, put on an unbroken 102 and walked it home. Axar took the match award for the double.
It was England’s first ODI defeat at Edgbaston since 2014, and the first time on the tour India’s middle order had actually finished a job. Gill’s point afterwards was the one that matters: India’s batting is more experienced than their bowling, and they back themselves to chase 300-320.
Cardiff: the reply
Brook won the toss and bowled, reasoning — correctly — that the last three ODIs at Sophia Gardens had all gone the way of the chasing side.
India made 233 all out in 44 overs. Virat Kohli made 65 from 66 and Iyer a gritty 66, and after those two, nothing. Rohit Sharma made 26, Gill 31, and the middle order folded. Jofra Archer took 3 for 47 with every wicket coming in his last five overs after an outstanding but wicketless powerplay spell. Gus Atkinson took three, Saqib Mahmood two.
Then Bumrah removed Ben Duckett with the first ball of the chase — a golden duck, edged through to Ishan Kishan. England slid to 53 for 3, and then 125 for 5. And it still wasn’t enough.
Root: the problem India cannot solve
Root came in one ball into the innings and did not leave.
99 not out from 133 balls with nine boundaries. A fifty in 76 deliveries, his slowest in ODIs since the 2019 World Cup. His fifth consecutive fifty, his 67th in the format, and he has now made 286 ODI runs without being dismissed. Gus Atkinson pulled the winning four one ball into the 45th over and stranded him a run short of a 21st ODI hundred. Root said afterwards the win was the point, and by every account meant it.
Gill’s verdict was the most instructive thing anyone said all day. If the required rate had been five an over or more, India might have forced an error. It never was — and in a chase like that, Gill conceded, Root is a master.
That is India’s problem in a sentence. Their attack is good enough to reduce England to 53 for 3 twice in a week. It has not yet worked out how to remove the man at the other end.
Team news and selection questions
- KL Rahul missed Cardiff with illness, and Ishan Kishan took the gloves — then caught England’s first four wickets. Rahul’s availability is the first thing to check on Sunday morning.
- Gurnoor Brar went for 67 off 10 overs with eight wides and picked up a level-one Code of Conduct warning. He came in for Arshdeep Singh at Cardiff. India may want more control at one end, and Arshdeep has a good record in English conditions.
- Kuldeep Yadav hasn’t played, and R Ashwin has said publicly he’d like to see him treated better. It’s a live question at a ground where wrist spin has a role in the second half of an innings.
- Harry Brook is out of nick himself: 16 at Cardiff, out attempting a scoop off Brar moments after the same bowler had hit him on the grille. England won’t mind while Root keeps doing this, but a captain averaging what Brook is averaging in ODIs is a soft spot.
- Root leads the series with 175 runs. Gill has 111 at an average of 111.
Kohli, Rohit, and the 2027 clock
ESPNcricinfo described Kohli’s 65 at Cardiff as, in all likelihood, his penultimate innings on English soil.
He is 37. He retired from T20Is after the 2024 World Cup and from Tests last year. India’s next tour of England is years away. Sunday, in all probability, is the last time an English crowd watches Virat Kohli bat — at Lord’s, in a decider, in front of a ground that will be at least half Indian. That is the story of the day whatever the scorecard says.
Rohit Sharma, at 39, is on a similar clock and a worse run. He came into this series with 204 runs from six ODIs in 2026 at an average of 34, having struggled against New Zealand in January before better returns against Afghanistan. He’s made 11 and 26 here. Both men are openly building towards the 2027 ODI World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, and both know that every low score makes that conversation louder. A big innings at Lord’s answers a lot of questions for a while.
Lord’s: the numbers
Lord’s is the most evenly balanced ODI venue in England, and it isn’t close. Across 68 one-day internationals, the side batting first has won 32 and the side chasing has won 33, with two ties and one abandonment. The average first-innings score is 237 — which puts both matches in this series, 258 and 233, squarely in the normal band for the ground.
The highest total ever made here is England’s 334 for 4 against India in 1975. India’s highest successful chase at Lord’s is 326 for 8, against England in the 2002 NatWest final, an innings most Indian fans can still narrate shot by shot. The best ODI bowling figures at the ground belong to Reece Topley — 6 for 24 against India in 2022, on a green surface that England exploited perfectly.
In ODIs overall, the sides have met 110 times: India 61, England 44, two ties, three no-results. India have a strong historical record; England have the better recent one in home conditions.
One more thing worth putting in the piece: India’s women beat England by 270 runs in the one-off Test at Lord’s last week, Yastika Bhatia becoming the first woman to score a century at the ground and Kranti Gaud taking a maiden five-for. The men have an act to follow.
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Conditions
Sunday in London looks dry and around 22°C, with rain not expected. Expect a full 100 overs and no DLS complications.
An 11am start at Lord’s in July normally means the new ball does something for the first hour under whatever cloud is around, before the surface flattens and the slope becomes the main variable. Both captains have bowled first in this series. Both were right.
Prediction
Both ODIs in this series have gone the way of the chasing team, and so had the three before this one at Cardiff. The toss is worth real money on Sunday, and whoever wins it should bowl.
England have the momentum, the conditions, and Root — who has now made a habit of walking out at 0 for 1 and solving the problem personally. India have Bumrah, the better attack on paper, and a middle order that has already collapsed once this week.
Call: England, narrowly. But this is a coin-flip venue and a coin-flip toss, and if India bat first and post 300, it flips fast. Their batting is more experienced than their bowling, and Gill already told you they know it.
Suggested markets: England Match Winner · Toss Winner to Bowl First · Root or Gill Top Team Batter · Bumrah Top India Bowler · Total Match Runs (Under)
First ball: Sunday 19 July, 11:00am local / 10:00 GMT / 3:30pm IST. Lord’s, London.
