Ahmedabad: A clinical England outplayed India in all three departments in the first T20I, beating Virat Kohli-led side by eight wickets, to take a 1-0 lead in the 5-match series, here on Friday.
India were restricted to 124 for 7 in stipulated 20 overs despite Shreyas Iyer’s career-best 67.
Chasing a paltry 125 for victory England rode on a good start from openers Jason Roy and Jos Buttler. They duo took England to 50 for 0 in six overs.
Roy played the role of the aggressor, while Jos Buttler took his time to settle in before timing the ball beautifully in his 24-ball stay before departing for 28 playing for the turn against Yuzvendra Chahal.
They added 72 runs in a blazing opening stand. Roy slowed down a tad after that but the cushion of those early runs helped England.
Washington Sundar then struck with the first ball of his spell, trapping Roy, who fell for 49, having struck three sixes and four fours.
Jonny Bairstow (26*) and Dawid Malan (24*) shared an unbeaten 41-run stand for the third wicket as England got to the target in just 15.3 overs and handed India an 8-wicket defeat in the series opener.
Earlier, England captain Eoin Morgan won the toss and invited India to bat first.
India were off to a bad start as opener KL Rahul departed for 2 as early as the 2nd over of the match when he chopped one onto to his stumps against Jofra Archer. Captain Virat Kohli was then dismissed for 0 in Adil Rashid’s second over.
Rishabh Pant was promoted to No 4 ahead of Shreyas Iyer and the in-form wicketkeeper-batsman, on his T20I return, played an audacious reverse flick against Jofra Archer. However, he did not find support as Shikhar Dhawan fell for a 12-ball 4 as India slipped to their 2nd lowest power-play score of 22 for 3.
However, Pant failed to convert his start into a big knock as he fell for 21 but Shreyas Iyer kept the scoreboard moving after coming in at No 5. He kept losing partners as Hardik Pandya (19) and Shardul Thakur (0) departed in quick succession.
Iyer played a valiant knock for his career-best score of 67 from just 48 balls, hitting 8 boundaries and a six but there was very little contribution from elsewhere. Iyer got out in the last over as India managed to huff and puff to 124 for 7 in 20 overs
