Amidst huge anticipation, India and England faced each other in the decider of the five-match T20I series in Ahmedabad on Saturday (March 20).
Invited to bat first in the all-important clash, the hosts rode on skipper Virat Kohli’s 52-ball 80* and vice-captain Rohit Sharma’s 34-ball 64 to pile up a massive 224/2 in 20 overs. Suryakumar Yadav (32 off 17 balls) and Hardik Pandya (39* off 17 balls) also made notable contributions with the bat.
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For England, Adil Rashid (1-31) and Ben Stokes (1-26) managed to return with respectable bowling figures.
In reply, the visitors lost in-form Jason Roy for a silver duck but the duo of Jos Buttler and Dawid Malan added 130 runs for the second wicket to keep England in the hunt.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar (2-15), who drew the first blood for India, also broke the partnership by removing Buttler for 34-ball 52. Afterwards, England lost the plot as Jonny Bairstow (7), Malan (68 off 46 balls) and captain Eoin Morgan (1) got out in quick succession. Ben Stokes (14) also couldn’t do too much damage before getting out in the penultimate over.
Although Chris Jordan (11) and Sam Curran (14* off 3 balls) smashed Shardul Thakur (3-45) for 20 runs in the final over, it didn’t have any impact on the result as India comfortably won the game by 36 runs and clinched the T20I series 3-2.
For their all-round brilliance in the series-decider, the Men in Blue received rich praise from the cricket fraternity on Twitter.
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