India defeated world champions England in the first ODI of the 3-match series by 66 runs thanks to superlative performances by their two debutants- Krunal Pandya and Prasidh Krishna at the MCA Stadium in Pune.
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Eoin Morgan won the toss and chose to bowl first. Shikhar Dhawan made 98, while Virat Kohli made 56 runs. However, England came back in the middle overs with Ben Stokes (3/34) doing the damage and Mark Wood also picked two wickets.
But KL Rahul (62*) and debutant Krunal Pandya (58*) added 112* runs in the last 10 overs or so. The duo blasted the England bowlers to all corners of MCA stadium, with Krunal reaching his fifty in just 26 balls- breaking the world record for the fastest fifty on ODI debut, as India finished on 317/5.
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In reply, England got off to a flyer, as Jason Roy (46) and Jonny Bairstow added 135 runs in 15 overs for the opening wicket. However, then wickets fell consistently as the next best score was Moeen Ali’s 30.
Prasidh Krishna picked 4/54, becoming the first bowler to pick four wickets on ODI debut, and was helped with Bhuvneshwar Kumar who scalped 2/30. Shardul Thakur picked the important wickets of Jonny Bairstow for 94 in 66 balls with 7 sixes and 6 fours and then removed Eoin Morgan (22) and Jos Buttler (2) as well.
Krunal Pandya also picked a wicket on his ODI debut to cap off a brilliant outing for him.
India won the match by 66 runs as England was bundled out for 251 in 42.3 overs and went 1-0 up in the 3-ODI series.
The cricket fraternity was amazed at the way India performed with many of its star players missing and with two debutants performing exceedingly well in their first match and lauded the Indian team’s performance.
Here are the tweets:
