‘What a match’- Twitter comes alive as England hit a record 20 sixes to thump South Africa in the first T20I

Having drawn the ODI series by 1-1, England and South Africa began the T20I series in a thrilling fashion. Winning the toss, England chose to bat first and got off to a flyer with captain Jos Butler making a quickfire 22 off just seven deliveries. Jason Roy, on the other hand, continues to struggle with his form making just eight off of 15.

The next two batters Dawid Malan (43) and Jonny Bairstow (90) took charge of England’s batting. Bairstow in his sensational innings hit three boundaries and eight massive sixes and just missed what could have been a great century.

It was, however, Moeen Ali who stole the limelight by making England’s fastest T20I half-century ever. The southpaw hit 52 runs in 18 balls with the help of two fours and six massive sixes. England team on the back of great batting reached a humongous score of 234. In the process, the home team hit 20 sixes in what is a national record for the most number of sixes in England. Lungi Ngidi took a fifer and was the pick of the bowlers from the visiting team.

Coming on to chase a huge total, South Africa got off to a poor start with star player Quinton de Kock getting off at just two runs. The Proteas continued to struggle with the second wicket (Rilee Rossouw) getting out at a team score of seven. Reeza Hendricks (57) and Heinrich Klassen (20) steadied the innings for a while but could not stop the fall of wickets for long.

New captain David Miller (eight) failed to lead the team from the front and was dismissed by the returnee, Adil Rashid. The 21-year-old Tristan Stubbs, however, grabbed the opportunity and hit an exquisite 72 off of just 28 balls to threaten the English side. His innings included two fours and eight stylish sixes on all parts of the ground.

His wicket ended South Africa’s hopes of a win as the team could only manage 193 in the end and lost the game by 41 runs. Richard Gleeson with a bowling figure of 4-51-3 was England’s top wicket-taker, despite going for a lot of runs.

England and South Africa will clash in the second T20I on 28th July in Cardiff.

Let’s look at some of the Twitter reactions after the game.