England beat India rather easily in the first T20i of the five match series to take a 1-0 lead. India bounced right back on March 14 as they enjoyed a comfortable victory to win by 7 wickets and bring the series to 1-1.
England batted first and was immediately in trouble as the explosive Jos Butler was out for a duck. While England have one of the most aggressive T20 batting line-ups in world cricket, they played a rather quiet game as they appeared rather tentative in their approach and it cost them dearly.
India decided to go in with just 4 frontline bowlers and rely on Hardik Pandya to send down his quota of four overs. England should have targeted Pandya to get more runs of the fifth bowler but they ended up losing wickets on a regular basis and did not pull the trigger. As a result, they ended up getting to 164 which was probably about 20 runs short.
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India once again got off a poor start as KL Rahul fell for a duck and with no Rohit Sharma in the side, it looked like India’s middle order might get tested again. However, Ishan Kishan who was brought in for Shikhar Dhawan took charge of the game right away and played a blistering knock hitting 56 of 32 balls to take the momentum away from England.
Virat Kohli put his head down and played a fantastic T20 knock that saw him take India to victory. The Indian captain remained unbeaten on 78 and 5 fours and 3 sixes in his knock. Rishabh Pant played a little cameo scoring 26 at a strike rate of 200 to ensure that India got home with 13 balls to spare.
Ishan Kishan was given the man of the match award and it is likely that he will retain his place in the squad for the third T20 which starts on March 16. R Sharma who was rested for the first two T20 games will be back in the side and will most likely open with Kishan as KL Rahul should be dropped after two poor performances.
India goes in as the betting favorites for the third T20 with odds of 8/11 while England has odds of 11/10 with Bwin.
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