England bowler Liam Plunkett has shown more confidence and his performances have bettered since the moment Eoin Morgan started captaining the ODI and T20I team.
Cricket news: The record had managed to remain intact for 18 months
Plunkett has become very confident while bowling and has worked extremely well with his variations. He has also become quite reliable with the bat, which makes him a priceless asset for the team.
In the first ODI on Thursday against India, the top order consisting of Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli ran riot on England’s bowling brigade.
Plunkett had a quiet evening giving 31 runs from his 6 overs without getting any wicket. However he managed to break a record which had remained intact for 18 months.
In the 35th over of India’s innings, Plunkett overstepped the line and it was the first front-foot no-ball bowled by England in over a year. The last front-foot no-ball was bowled against India at Cuttack in January 2017 and interestingly it was Plunkett himself.
In that match, Indian legends Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni dealt some serious hammering to the English bowlers, especially Plunkett, which resulted in him over-stepping in the game.
Since them it had been 9249 balls and no English bowler had overstepped the bowling crease. There had been 5 no-balls during his long spell, but that was due to full-tosses or some other reasons.
Chris Woakes, Ben Stokes, Joe Root and Moeen Ali had bowled full-toss no balls. Once one delivery of Ben Stokes was deemed a no-ball as there were 5 fielders outside the 30-yard circle.
While other teams are struggling with this aspect of bowling, England has bowled only 3 no-balls in 2018. This means the fast bowlers are training extremely well to make themselves as accurate as possible as this terrific performance is of course a boon for the entire England team.