India's Rohit hits fifty after Kohli falls for duck against England

Skipper Rohit Sharma hit a fifty after India lost three early wickets including Virat Kohli for a nine-ball duck against defending champions England in their World Cup clash on Sunday.

Left-arm quick David Willey claimed the prized scalp of Kohli who played a loose shot to be caught at mid-off by Ben Stokes and walked off to stunned silence at Lucknow's Ekana Stadium.

The unbeaten hosts lost two more wickets to slip to 40-3 before Rohit reached his second fifty of the tournament -- he also hit a century against Afghanistan -- and attempted to steady the innings with KL Rahul.

Rohit survived a reprieve on 33 when he was given out lbw off Mark Wood but the opener reviewed the decision in his favour with tracking showing the ball would have missed leg stump.

He reached his fifty in 66 balls and took India to 89-3 in 24 overs.

Meanwhile Kohli remains one century away from equalling all-time great Sachin Tendulkar's record of 49 ODI hundreds.

Former captain Kohli has been in good form at this 50-over showpiece, hitting a match-winning 95 against New Zealand last week.

He started by scoring 85 in India's opening match against Australia and followed it up with a 55 not out (Afghanistan), 16 (Pakistan), 103 not out (Bangladesh).

Sunday's duck was his 16th in ODIs in his 275th innings.

Kohli has scored 13,437 ODI runs at an average of over 58 since his debut in 2008.

Chris Woakes bowled opener Shubman Gill for nine in the fourth over after England, who sit bottom of the 10-team table, elected to bowl in their bid for victory and keep their slim hopes alive of making the semi-finals.

Woakes gabbed one more to send Shreyas Iyer back to the pavilion for four.

Earlier, India's star batsman Virat Kohli fell for a nine-ball duck as England's fast bowlers struck early blows in their must-win World Cup clash on Sunday.

Left-arm quick David Willey claimed the prized scalp after Kohli played a loose shot to be caught at mid-off by Ben Stokes and walked off to stunned silence at Lucknow's Ekana Stadium.

Kohli remains one century away from equalling all-time great Sachin Tendulkar's record of 49 ODI hundreds.

Former captain Kohli has been in good form at this 50-over showpiece, hitting a match-winning 95 against New Zealand last week.

He started by scoring 85 in India's opening match against Australia and followed it up with a 55 not out (Afghanistan), 16 (Pakistan), 103 not out (Bangladesh).

Sunday's duck was his 16th in ODIs in his 275th innings.

Kohli has scored 13,437 runs at an average of over 58 since his debut in 2008.

Chris Woakes bowled opener Shubman Gill for nine in the fourth over after England, who sit bottom of the 10-team table, elected to bowl in their bid for victory and keep their slim hopes alive of making the semi-finals.

Woakes got one more to send Shreyas Iyer (four) back to the pavilion for four as India slipped to 40-3 in 12 overs.

Earlier, England won the toss and elected to field first in the ICC’s World Cup’s match against India.

"We haven’t done ourselves justice," said England captain Jos Buttler. "Playing against India in front of a full stadium is a great occasion. Hope we can play our best cricket. We are going with the same team."

"We wanted to bat first," India captain Rohit Sharma said. "We had a good time batting second. It's a new surface re-laid here, and it plays well all through. So, we don't mind batting second. It's important to get those two points and whatever it takes to do that, it takes. It's always nice to have a break, you get the time to reflect where you stand. We are playing the same team that we played the last time."

It is to be noted here that the hosts are undefeated in their five matches, whereas, the defending champions are struggling very hard to keep their semi-finals hopes alive.

With just one win from five games, England are lurking near the bottom of the points table. If they are to make it to the knockouts from here, every atom in this universe needs to work for them - there are that many permutations they need to go in their favour.

England seem to have already done what was in their control. They have tried all 15 players in the original squad, tried to play with no care in the world, and even left out their vice-captain for three out of five games. Nothing has worked.

India, on the other hand, have looked like the most complete team. With five wins in as many matches, they are the only unbeaten team in the tournament. They even defeated New Zealand, their bogey team at the ICC events, despite missing their most irreplaceable, two-in-one player Hardik Pandya.

The key to India's success is how they start. Rohit Sharma has been setting the tone in the powerplay, striking at 134.01, while Jasprit Bumrah has been doing it with the ball, with an eye-popping economy of 2.90 in the first ten overs.

If India win on Sunday, they will regain the top spot and push England further to the brink of elimination. But they are still without Hardik, who is recovering from his ankle injury. And that means going in with just five frontline bowlers once again. Perhaps that's why Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav were rolling their arms over in the nets.

Playing XIs

India: 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Shubman Gill, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 KL Rahul (wk), 6 Suryakumar Yadav, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Kuldeep Yadav, 9 Mohammed Shami, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Mohammed Siraj

England: 1 Jonny Bairstow, 2 Dawid Malan, 3 Joe Root, 4 Ben Stokes, 5 Jos Buttler (capt/wk), 6 Liam Livingstone, 7 Moeen Ali, 8 Chris Woakes, 9 David Willey, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Mark Wood.