Broken finger rules Rohit Sharma out of England ODIs; Murali Vijay called up

Seeking to continue their winning momentum and take an unassailable 2-0 lead, India were dealt a blow ahead of the third one-dayer against England here tomorrow as opener Rohit Sharma was ruled out of the remainder of the tour because of injury.

Sharma, who had made a well-crafted half-century in India’s 133-run hammering of England in the second game, suffered a fracture on the middle finger of his right hand. Murali Vijay has been picked as Sharma’s replacement for the rest of the series.

Sharma’s injury has turned out to be India’s biggest worry going into the third One-dayer.

The first ODI in Bristol was abandoned without a ball being bowled and India hammered the hosts under the Duckworth/Lewis method in the second game in Cardiff to take a 1-0 lead in the five-match ODI series.

Having recorded his first century outside the sub continent with a blazing 75-ball 100, Suresh Raina will look to carry on in same fashion while Ravindra Jadeja was the pick of the bowlers in the second game.

The two teams have played at Trent Bridge earlier this summer and there were two resultants from that first Test here.

First, the pitch for that match was deemed poor by the match referee David Boon and the groundsman received an official warning from the ICC. There was nothing in it for the bowlers who toiled hard as the batsmen - mostly tailenders from both sides - made merry.

If a similar pitch is doled out for this ODI match though, no one will be complaining as the weekend crowd will get to see a high scoring encounter, hopefully with the top-order scoring this time around.

The second resultant though had more far reaching consequences on how that Test series panned out. The Ravindra Jadeja-James Anderson clash has only recently receded from memory and this match has come about to enliven the episode again.

The Indian management had pressed ahead in their bid to get the fast bowler banned for allegedly pushing Jadeja, so much so that they lost focus on the task at hand and lost the series 1-3 despite taking a 1-0 lead.

PTI