Jos Buttler’s thrilling unbeaten 80 and Jonny Bairstow’s 40 helped England to seal a comprehensive 8-wicket victory to take a lead of 2-1 is the five match T20I series .
England decided to field first after winning the toss and made one change by adding Mark Wood in place of Tom Curran . For team India , Rohit sharma replaced Suryakumar Yadav. From the very onset, English bowlers put India on the backfoot by picking 3 wickets in the powerplay. India were restricted to 24/3 in the powerful due to some high quality fast bowling from England.
Kl Rahul was the first one to go for 0 as his poor form in the series continues. Mark Wood who bowled some red-hot deliveries dismissed the dangerous Rohit Sharma for 15 . Ishan Kishan , who was the man of the match in the previous match, was dismissed by Jorden for 1 which broke the backbone of Indian batting . Virat Kohli and Rishabh Pant then tried to steady the ship as they looked to snitch a partnership but Pant was run out for 25 due to a severe mix-up between him and Kohli which was a big turning point in the match . While his teammates failed to put up a partnership, Virat Kohli yet again showed his class by holding the innings together and displayed a masterclass on how to pace an innings . Kohli had ticked along to 28 from 29 balls by the end of the 15th over – and at 87 for 5, a total in the region of 120, much as they had made on Friday, seemed the upper end of India’s ambitions.
Kohli then changed gears as he scored his next 49 runs in just 17 balls which completely changed the momentum. Virat’s unbeaten 77(46) included 8 fours and 4 sixes which helped India to post a decent total of 156/6 . Hardik Pandya, more hit-and-miss than his magisterial captain, still landed two vital wipes in his 15-ball 17 as Jordan and Archer offered too much width on their short balls. It was a splendid bowling performance displayed by the English bowlers as they bowled in proper line and length and restricted the Indian Indian batsman to play freely . Mark Wood was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 3/31.
England’s reply-
Jos Buttler lead the way for the English chase as he dominated the Indian bowling and did not allow India to find a way into the match . Buttler first held a partnership of 58 with Dawid Malan 18(17) and then a vital partnership of 75 runs with Jonny Bairstow with Buttler being the aggressor in both the partnerships . He scored a brilliant and dominating unbeaten 80(52) which had 5 fours and 4 massive sixes which defined England’s chase . Bairstow made an unbeaten 40(28) and provided vital assistance to Buttler by taking the odd chances which kept the runs flowing from both ends. England chased the target comfortably with 8 wickets remaining. Buttler was adjudicated as the man of the match for his brilliant batting display.
This was a dominant performance by England with both bat and ball to comeback into the series. India will be disappointed with their performance as apart from Kohli none of the batsmen were able to put up a show with the bat. India have had three different opening pairs in three different matches and if they want to make a comeback in the series, then they cannot chop and change players after each game. On the other hand ,England will be looking to continue their winning momentum and seal the series in the next match.
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