IND-ENG  1ST  T20I REVIEW

Courtesy : Hindustantimes.com

Kohli, the captain , who’s bereft of runs across formats,  and yet to score a century in 37 matches and with 5 ducks to his name, found wanting in batting is to be rested.  Instead of that he rested the in-form premier batsman Rohit Sharma for the T20 series opener at Narendra Modi stadium, Ahmedabad.  It was a preposterous decision.  The “hitman” who is in sublime form and he’s the best opening batsman of the country, especially in the shorter format cooling heels in the  dug-out  was really awful to see. Incidentally the Captain announced in the pre-match press meeting that “Rohit and Rahul will open the innings”.

In fact the decision of ” resting” Rohit  was criticised by the legendary opening batsmen Virender Shewag and “Cheeka” Srikkanth ( on his youtube channel).  Both of them slammed the “resting” decision saying the decision may boomerang the outcome of the series and they especially questioned the timing of the “ rest” of Rohit in the first game itself.

The irony was when one of the media persons(in the post match session) asked some of his decisions, he got annoyed.  And this is not the first time Kohli took some ludicrous decisions like this before also like “ resting”  India’s best pace bowler Bumrah in the second Test at Chennai against England recently.

After winning the toss yesterday in the first T20I , the astute England captain asked India to bat in helpful conditions.  And Jofra Archer , the lanky seamer exploited the pitch conditions well along with his compatriot speedster  Mark Wood.  Both of them didn’t give any leeway for Indian batsmen to dominate.  And in a heap, India lost top 3 batsmen, including Kohli for a duck before Pant , who was promoted up the order took some control albeit briefly.  Pant’s penchant for some audacious shots saw him again reverse sweeping a pace bowler and this time it was off Archer.  His cameo innings ended  as Archer had the last laugh when tried to take on his short ball only to find a fielder in deep pouching it gleefully.  And Shreyas Iyer played a waiting game in the middle of the rubble with an half century and Hardik Pandya chipping in with some useful runs, added respectability to the total as the Barbadian born Archer finished with 3 wickets with miserly runs.

And England chasing a paltry 125 runs, gave a rollicking start with Jason Roy cutting loose all Indian bowlers and Buttler also joining the party putting 72 runs for the first wicket  and  later on Dawid Malan & Jonny Bairstow gave finishing touches  without any hiccups to the game with Dawid Malan lifting W. Sundar’s delivery for a straight six  and the Poms romping home with 8 wickets in 15.3 overs.