‘Skipper returns, wins return’- Twitter ecstatic as India sink England in the first T20I

Having lost the fifth Test match against England despite winning most of the sessions, the first T20I came with an opportunity to avenge the heartbreaking loss. India with an all-round performance did just that against the English T20I side, winning the game by a massive 50 runs.

Coming on to bat first, the Indian team looked motivated from the word get-go. The returning captain Rohit Sharma looked prepared from the first ball itself. The Indian captain made 24 before departing but his innings laid a good platform and showed a sign of intent to the next batters. In his 24-run inning, he hit five boundaries. Ishan Kishan did not have a good day but the rest of the batters walked in India’s captain’s footsteps.

Deepak Hooda continued on his great form from the India vs Ireland series and hit 33 runs off 17 balls, with three boundaries and two sixes. Suryakumar Yadav also contributed significantly with his 39 off of 19. Gujarat captain and the Indian T20 Trophy holder, Hardik Pandya hit a sensational 51 off of 33 to help India achieve 198 in 20 overs.

The target looked quite achievable given the aggression in England’s batting and India’s poor bowling in the last T20I game against Ireland. But the Indian bowling lineup led by the veteran Bhuvneshwar Kumar came up with a massive surprise and the English batters were dumbfounded. Bhuvneshwar and the debutant Arshdeep Singh showed great swing bowling, not allowing England batters to have a go at the ball. Jason Roy’s four off 16 exemplified England’s top-order batting where none of them looked confident against the Indian seamers.

Harry Brook and Moeen Ali steadied the innings with respective scores of 28 and 36 but they too were scalped by Yuzvendra Chahal. In the end, the target of 198 was too much for the hosts and they could only muster 148.  This was Hardik’s best batting (51) as well as best bowling (4-33) performance in a T20I match.

Indian fans were ecstatic by India’s performance after their heartbreaking loss in the fifth Test match. Twitter was flooded with fans celebrating India’s emphatic win. Let’s look at some of them.