India bounced back strongly from their defeat in the previous match with an eight-run win against England in the fourth T20I of the ongoing five-match series in Ahmedabad on Thursday. Suryakumar Yadav’s 31-ball 57 and Shreyas Iyer’s late 18-ball 37 helped India post a challenging total of 185/8 after they lost Rohit Sharma (12), KL Rahul (14) and Virat Kohli (1) by the ninth over.
Rishabh Pant also did well for his 23-ball 30. He was involved in two crucial stands of 40 and 34 with Suryakumar and Iyer respectively. Shardul Thakur, Hardik Pandya, and Washington Sundar provided India late impetus towards the end: between them, they scored 25 off 14 balls.
Jofra Archer (4-0-33-4) and Mark Wood (4-1-25-1) were excellent for England once again. They were supported well by Ben Stokes (3-0-26-1). But Adil Rashid, Sam Curran and Chris Jordan turned out to be too expensive and that didn’t allow the visitors to restrict India to a low total.
England needed a good start from their openers in order to chase down that daunting target of 186. They lost Jos Buttler (9) with just 15 runs on the board. Jason Roy (40) and Dawid Malan (14) then steadied the ship with a 45-run stand before Rahul Chahar cleaned up Malan in the eighth over. Roy was dismissed by Pandya in the very next over.
Things didn’t look good for England as the asking rate kept climbing up but Ben Stokes (46) and Jonny Bairstow (25) brought them back into the game by adding 55 runs in the next six overs. At one point, it looked like they would take the game away from India. However, Chahar and Thakur brought India back into the game as they dismissed Bairstow and Stokes in the 15th and 17th overs respectively.
In fact, the 17th over, from Thakur, was a turning point in the game as he got rid of both Stokes and Eoin Morgan (4), while conceding just seven runs.
Pandya and Bhuvneshwar kept the fight going as they conceded a combined total of 16 runs in the next two overs, thus leaving England to chase down 23 runs in the final over with Archer and Jordan at the crease.
Thakur was called up to bowl. Archer smashed him for two sixes in the first three balls. To add to India’s woes, Thakur bowled back-to-back wides after that. England needed just 10 off the last three balls, but Shardul held his nerves, conceding just two more and picking up the wicket of Jordan as well.
With 4-0-16-2, Pandya was the pick of the Indian bowlers. Bhuvneshwar (4-1-30-1) and Chahar (4-0-35-2) played crucial roles as well whereas Sundar, one of India’s best bowlers in the last three matches, ended up conceding 52 runs in his four overs. Thakur finished with 4-0-42-3.
Suryakumar, who scored a fifty in his maiden T20I innings, was deservedly adjudged Player of the Match. With this win, India leveled the series 2-2, and now they head into the decider on Saturday with momentum in their favour.
Brief scores
India 185/8 in 20 overs (Suryakumar Yadav 57; Jofra Archer 4-33) beat England 177/8 in 20 overs (Ben Stokes 46; Hardik Pandya 2-16) by 8 runs. Player of the Match: Suryakumar Yadav.