AHMEDABAD : A resounding eight-wicket win for the hosts against England in the final T20 seals the series for them at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Saturday. (3-2)

With this victory, India have now managed to remain unbeaten in the past 8 bilateral series in the format with their previous loss dating way back to 2019 by 2-0 against Australia at home. England as well, were unbeaten in the past 8 T20 series that they played in and co-incidentally their previous series loss was also against India back home in 2018 where they lost the series by a margin of 2-1.

As India failed to win the toss for the 4th time in the five-match series, Virat Kohli revealed that he would be opening the innings alongside Rohit. The reason being Rahul’s absence allowed the team to add a sixth bowling option for the decider of the paytm trophy in Natarajan. So in 45 games as captain, Virat has lost 27 tosses and won 18 of them which makes up a loss ratio of 60%.

But, losing the toss and being put to bat first in this series has turned out to be a blessing in disguise for India. The first T20 where India ended up scoring 124/7 in their 20 overs while batting first, was an eye-opener for them in terms of how they need a good start from the top of the order to put up a strong first innings target that can contribute immensely in a victory and therefore, they brought in a fearless Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav in their top three to fulfill the need.

The move definitely paid off because Kishan blazed 56 off 32 as an opener in a run-chase while Surya who did not get to bat in his debut match, showed why he is such a highly-rated player especially in the T20 format with a half-century and a quickfire 32 off 17 in the two innings that he batted in.

Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli were the fourth opening combination that India had tried out in the entire series comprising of five matches (Rohit-Shikhar, Rohit-Kishan, Rohit-Rahul in 2 games and now Rohit-Virat). Virat Kohli had opened the innings on only 7 occasions before this match and the previous game that this happened was against Ireland at Dublin in June 2018. The following are his numbers as an opener before yesterday’s match :-

Innings – 7 , Runs – 198 , average – 28.2 , Strike-rate – 146.6 , 50’s – 1.

Virat ended up scoring 80 off 52 deliveries at a strike rate which was higher than the strike-rate he recorded in the seven previous innings as an opener. (153.8) He played second fiddle almost throughout the innings with Rohit, Surya and then Hardik who took the bowlers on. Rohit Sharma does not usually begin his innings with boundaries all over the ground but Virat’s presence at the non-striker’s end enabled him to not hold back and go for the runs. Virat looked to give most of the strike to Rohit because the vice-captain was firing while he, at the other end, ensured that he batted deep and raised the tempo of the innings progressively. The two are also the top two run-getters in the format with the captain leading the chart at 3159 runs followed by the Hitman at 2864 international runs.

India’s final total of 224/2 was their highest against England in T20’s which pipped their 218/4 that they ended up with against the Three Lions at Durban in 2007.

Image courtesy : BCCI

After losing Roy for no runs on the board, a massive 130-run stand between Buttler (52 off 34) and Malan (68 off 46) did look confident of giving a fight to the Indian target. During the innings, David Malan crossed a 1000 T20 international runs while becoming the fastest to get there. Babar Azam got there in 26 innings while Virat Kohli achieved the feat in 27 innings, followed by Finch and Rahul who took 29 innings respectively to reach the number.

The partnership was broken by none other than Bhuvneshwar Kumar when he got Buttler to mistime his delivery straight to long-on. On such a wonderful batting track where almost 400 runs were scored in all, Bhuvi managed to finish with figures of just 15 runs and 2 wickets in his 4 overs. His economy of a miserly 6.4 runs per over including 4 wickets in the series is a huge boost for India as he is someone who can pick early wickets in the powerplay along with being their go-to man at the death. He needs to be injury-free in the future and that is why his workload management will be crucial as three world cups await India in the next three years. The right-arm swing bowler was also adjudged the man-of-the-match for his performance yesterday in the fifth T20.

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