India ride on all-round performance to thrash hapless England in T20I series opener

Team India roared off to a rambunctious start in the five-match T20I series as their bowlers spearheaded the charge, before the Indian batters sent the England bowlers on a leather hunt.

Winning the toss, India opted to field first and their bowlers were bang on their money from the word go. Arshdeep Singh produced a nick off Phil Salt to remove him for a duck and struck again in quick succession to see the back of Ben Duckett (4).

Harry Brook’s (17) arrival did try and soothe the frayed English nerves as he came together with Jos Buttler (68) but couldn’t really sustain against Varun Chakravarthy’s mystery spin. Liam Livingstone (0) was no match to Varun’s mastery either as the latter sneaked one through the gates.

Jacob Bethell’s introduction to the Indian conditions was more of a rude awakening as Hardik Pandya removed him for a paltry seven. The vice-captain of the Indian team, Axar Patel joined the party, bagging the crucial scalps of Jamie Overton (2) and Gus Atkinson (2) in quick succession. After a whirlwind knock, Varun finally removed Jos Buttler as England’s last straw of resistance was demolished.

From thereon it was just a matter of formality for the Indian bowlers as they mopped up the remainder of the English batting effort shortly enough. As England were skittled out for 132, Varun Chakravarthy was the pick of the lot with figures of 3/23 while he had support from Arshdeep Singh, Hardik Pandya and Axar Patel as the trio chimed in with six wickets.

The Indian openers got off to a rollicking overture as Sanju Samson (26) and Abhishek Sharma (79) smashed boundaries at will in Kolkata. Despite the equation being tricky for a trice, when India lost two wickets in quick succession in the form of Samson and Suryakumar Yadav (0), the hosts plugged the gap well enough through an unstoppable Abhishek.

Sharma’s domination, a 34-ball 79 featuring a whopping 86.07% of the runs in boundaries finally came to a halt by the time when India was already in the finishing stretch and all they had to do was just knock it around for the last few balls to seize a victory within 12.5 overs and seven wickets to spare.

Tilak Varma stayed unbeaten on 19 off 16, keeping his momentum in the shortest format of the game intact.

Varun Chakaravarthy was the Player of the Match for his incredible performance with the ball, playing a key role in India’s dominating win.