| 1dJonny Bairstow made a timely century after both he and Jason Roy capitalised on some early fortune to give England a superb start in their crunch World Cup fixture against India at Edgbaston.
Bairstow twice inside edged Mohammed Shami past his stumps in a streaky start to his innings while the more assertive Roy gloved down the leg-side on 21 – only for India to decide against a review.
The pair accelerated from there, moving swiftly past their half-centuries with a rash of boundaries, and although Roy was dismissed for 66, Bairstow brought up a 90-ball hundred to lift England to 183 for one after 26 overs.
Back-to-back defeats to Sri Lanka and Australia left England on the precipice, and they dropped out of the qualification spots for a semi-final place following Pakistan’s win over Afghanistan on Saturday.
Eoin Morgan won the toss, confirming Roy would come in for James Vince while Liam Plunkett was recalled in favour of Moeen Ali.
Morgan’s decision to bat seemed a curious decision as Roy and Bairstow – whose “people were waiting for us to fail” comments earlier in the week caused consternation – were less than fluent under overcast skies.
Roy’s hamstring seemed to be giving him few problems but he was rapped on the hand by the economical Jasprit Bumrah before Hardik Pandya’s innocuous delivery brushed Roy’s glove on the way to the wicketkeeper.
Virat Kohli decided against sending the not out decision to the umpire, which seemed to galvanise Roy and Bairstow as they took the attack to Pandya and India leg-spinners Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav.
Bairstow, in particular, was withering to the turners, crunching six sixes in total, the Yorkshireman the first to his half-century off 56 balls, just about beating KL Rahul in the deep, the India fielder seemingly injuring his back.
Roy brought up his 50 off 41 deliveries but, as the scoring rate was growing exponentially, he perished after holing out to substitute fielder Ravindra Jadeja.
Bairstow, though, moved to 96 with a reverse sweep off the expensive Kuldeep before moving into three figures for the first time in this tournament by pulling Pandya to deep square-leg for a single.
