The fourth T20I between India and England stopped the run of teams batting second and winning the matches, as India won the match and leveled the series 2-2, making the final T20I on March 20 a series decider.
India was put into bat after Eoin Morgan won the toss and chose to field first, a norm in this series. Suryakumar Yadav replaced Ishan Kishan in the playing XI and played a brilliant knock in his first outing in international cricket.
He made 57 in 31 balls with 6 fours and 3 sixes and with 30 from Rishabh Pant and 37 from Shreyas Iyer, took India to 185/8 in 20 overs. Jofra Archer picked 4/33 and was the best bowler for England.
In reply, Indian bowlers especially Hardik Pandya (2/16) and Rahul Chahar (2/35) kept the England batsmen thirsty for runs. Jason Roy made 40 in 27 with 6 fours and 1 six, while Jonny Bairstow contributed 25 runs, but the innings that kept England in contention was Ben Stokes, who slammed 46 in 23 balls with 3 sixes and 4 fours.
Shardul Thakur removed both Stokes and then Morgan in two balls but it all came down to him defending 23 runs from last over, after Bhuvneshwar gave just 10 runs in the 19th over.
Jofra Archer slammed him for a four and a six in the over. However, Thakur kept his cool however and earned India an 8 run win. With this win, Indian team also leveled the series 2-2 with the fifth and final T20I on March 20 becoming the series decider.
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For India, Shardul Thakur (3/42) was the most successful bowler, while Washington Sundar was the most expensive one with 52 runs in 4 overs.
The cricket fraternity was elated at the Indian team’s victory, especially defending a target and showed their emotions on Twitter.
Here are the tweets:
