India vs England | How and where India lost the first T20I today

ByAmlan Majumdar, SportsCafe Editor

01/26/2017

England have followed up their win in the last ODI at the Eden Gardens with a convincing 7-wicket over the hosts in the first T20I of the series. In what was arguably England’s most polished performance on this tour, it was the English pacers who shined at Kanpur.

India’s opening woes

India’s opening woes have continued into the T20 format of the game as well. This time, Virat Kohli walked out to face the new ball alongside KL Rahul in the first T20I at Kanpur. However, the first wicket fell in the fifth over of the match. KL Rahul, who had scored only 24 runs in the three ODIs against England, walked back to the pavilion having scored just eight runs from nine deliveries.

India need to fix their issue at the top of the order before heading into the Champions Trophy. KL Rahul, it seems, has lost his focus at the moment, and India will be hoping that either him or Shikhar Dhawan gets into form in the limited overs format soon.

England, on the other hand, had better starts than India throughout the ODI series, and their opening duo of Jason Roy and Sam Billings set them off to another flying start.

Opening wicket partnerships:

1st ODI - India 13 – 39 England

2nd ODI - India 14 – 28 England

3rd ODI - India 13 – 98 England

1st T20 - India 34 – 42 England

India’s inability to find the boundaries

Apart from Suresh Raina, who returned to the side after ten months, and MS Dhoni, none of the other batsmen stood up.

Incredibly, the Indian batsmen managed to hit just 13 boundaries and 1 six in their whole innings, and only 4 fours and 1 six came in the last 10 overs of their innings - two of those boundaries were scored in the final over by MS Dhoni. Overall, just 37 runs came between the 13th and the 19th over despite India losing just two wickets during that phase.

KL Rahul, Yuvraj Singh, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, and Parvez Rasool scored a combined total of 37 runs from 45 balls, as India racked up 41 dot balls in 20 overs.

Manish Pandey is walking a very tight line at the moment and his place in the squad will surely be considered before the Champions Trophy. The 27-year-old has scored 83 runs in his last 6 innings in the ODIs at an average of 20.75, while he has managed 70 runs in his last 5 innings in T20Is at an average of 14 - taking his overall average to 17 in his last 11 limited overs appearance for the nation.

Go full or short?

The English pacers have been at the receiving end of a lot of stick from the Indian batsmen throughout the tour, however, at Kanpur they won the game for England. Tymal Mills, who made his debut for the visitors, and Chris Jordan bowled beautifully and troubled the Indian batsmen with short deliveries.

England found the perfect bowling length for this wicket. They hardly pitched anything up, apart from the final over when Dhoni hit Jordan for a couple of boundaries and missed out on the opportunity to hit a couple more. KL Rahul, Yuvraj Singh, and Hardik Pandya were all dismissed with the help of short deliveries.

The Indian pacers, on the other hand, preferred to bowl at a fuller length in search of swing and seam movement and were hit all over the park.