
Courtesy: BCCI
On Wednesday, January 22, the Indian cricket team began the five-match T20I series in style with a commanding win against England at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. India defeated England by seven wickets with 43 balls to spare in the first T20I, to take a 1-0 lead in the series, thanks to a complete team performance with the likes of Varun Chakravarthy and Abhishek Sharma standing out.
After winning the toss, Suryakumar Yadav, the captain of India, decided to field first, and Arshdeep Singh struck in the first over, sending Phil Salt back into the pavilion without troubling the scorers before picking up the key wicket of Ben Duckett in his second over. Varun Chakravarthy got into the act in the eighth over of the England innings, cleaning up Harry Brook before Liam Livingstone suffered the same fate on his wrong’un.
With wickets falling at the other end, Jos Buttler kept the England innings from failing completely apart with his 68 off 44, which included eight boundaries and two maximums. The experienced all-round duo of Hardik Pandya also took a couple of wickets in the second half of England’s batting effort, to ensure that they were bundled out for 132 runs in 20 overs.
In the run chase, Sanju Samson got off to a flyer with 26 off 20 balls, which included four fours and one maximum against Gus Atkinson in the second over of the Indian innings. After Jofra Archer dismissed Sanju Samson and Suryakumar Yadav in the same over, with the latter losing his wicket without troubling the scorers, but from that point onwards, Abhishek Sharma took control.
The left-handed batter went through the gears very quickly to end up scoring 79 runs in just 34 balls with five fours and eight maximums, to put India on the brink before Tilak Varma hit the winning runs against Mark Wood.