On a lovely summer’s afternoon in Bristol, England picked an XI closer to the one they will be hoping to field in the World Cup… and finally put in a performance closer to the one they’ll be hoping for too.

England brought back Linsey Smith and Danni Wyatt-Hodge, and whilst neither had their best day England looked a stronger team for their presence. Wyatt-Hodge made 29 off 25 balls, and the sight of one of her vintage lofted drives over extra cover was one that England fans have sorely missed in her absence on parental leave. Smith took some punishment from Shafali Verma in the powerplay, conceding 12 off her first over as the Indian opener went on the rampage; and when the first ball of her comeback over (the 5th) also went to the boundary off the bat of Smriti Mandhana, the pressure was on; but she rode it out and managed to keep things tight for the rest of her overs, albeit finishing wicketless.

England once again drifted through the middle overs, despite having plenty of wickets in hand. I know little of fashion, but I’m told that England’s current T20 kit has a “retro” feel, so perhaps that’s what they were channeling with a Run Rate of 8 through those middle phases, which would have looked pretty good 10 years ago!

Again, Heather Knight struggled to really get going – you could almost feel her mashing the “boost” button but the powerups just weren’t coming her way; and when she pinged a return catch back to Shree Charani, a colleague in the press box commented that the smart move might actually have been to drop it!

So it proved as Freya Kemp played herself in and then led a charge in the final two overs which saw her finish on 39 off 13 balls, at a Strike Rate of exactly 300! Admittedly, she was handed it on a plate as India served up full tosses and then went to pieces in the field; but you’ve still got to convert those opportunities, and Kemp did so with style. India can be one of the best teams in the world… and one of the worst; and today they really hit rock-bottom in those final two overs, which cost them the game – if they had gone at even close to the 7 per over that the rest of the innings had, India would have won the match easily.

In reply, India got off to a steady start, with Shafali playing some big shots, and Smriti some exquisite ones; meaning India were well-placed at the halfway mark, at least according to our Win Predictor, though CricViz and CricInfo demurred – they both gave the edge to England at that stage.

But as the innings rolled on Yastika began to lose her way, pretty much as she’d done at Chelmsford. Having at one point been 28 off 24 balls, she appeared seized by an attack of stagefright and played out 7 dots which India could ill-afford, before becoming the answer to a quiz question which will echo down the years: Who was the first batter to be retired out in a top-level women’s T20 international?

Somewhat predictably, it didn’t help much – as we saw the couple of times it happened in WPL, it puts huge pressure on the batter coming in, and Jemimah lasted just two balls before going too hard at a pretty innocuous delivery from Freya Kemp and getting caught on the ring. With that, any remaining self-belief drained from the Indians, as they essentially retired out the rest of their innings, leaving England to close out the game and level the series at 1-1.