England beat India by 8 wickets in the first T20I of the five-match series, all of which will be played at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Motera, Ahmedabad. Reduced to 20/3 in 5 overs, India struggled to reach 124/7 despite Shreyas Iyer’s 48-ball 67 and cameos from Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya. Jofra Archer finished with 4-1-23-3, and was one of three English bowlers (Adil Rashid and Mark Wood were the others) to concede under six an over.
England barely broke a sweat during the chase. Jason Roy announced a return to form with a blazing 32-ball 49; Jos Buttler, Dawid Malan, and Jonny Bairstow all contributed; and England won inside 16 overs. The teams will meet for the second T20I at the same venue on 14 March. Ahead of that, here is a statistical preview:
0 instances of England winning more than one match in a series against India. They have four chances to set that right here.
0.875 India’s win-loss ratio against England (7 wins, 8 defeats). They have got a worse ratio only against New Zealand (0.75).
1 catch needed by Kohli (41) to top the list among Indian non-wicketkeepers. He is currently tied with Suresh Raina. Rohit has held 40 catches.
1.847 win-loss ratio for India, the second-best for any team with a 50-match cut-off. Only Afghanistan (2.2) has better. With 1.181, England are at seventh place.
2.571 win-loss ratio for England over the past three years, the best for any team with a 20-match cut-off. With 2.363, India are at second place.
3 uncapped cricketers in the Indian squad – Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, and Rahul Tewatia. One or more of them may add to the list of India’s 83 T20I caps.
42 runs needed by Jonny Bairstow (958), 61 by Jason Roy (939), and 121 by Dawid Malan (879) to reach 1,000 runs. Whoever does it first will become the fifth England batsman to the milestone, after Eoin Morgan (2,278), Alex Hales (1,644), Jos Buttler (1,579), and Kevin Pietersen (1,176).
72 runs needed by Kohli (2,928) to become the first man to score 3,000 runs. With 2,839 runs, Martin Guptill is second on the list.