IND vs ENG 3rd T20I: England Crush India by 125 Runs and Take 2-0 Lead

Team India had yet another disappointing outing yesterday in the third T20 of the 5-match series against England as they produced one of their worst batting performances in recent times. Chasing a target of 201 runs set by England, the Indian batters surrendered meekly to the express pace of Jofra Archer and Josh Tongue and eventually ended up losing the game by a massive margin of 125 runs in Nottingham.

Archer and Tongue produced an hostile spell of fast bowling and ended with figures of 3 for 29 and 4 for 28 respectively in their allotted quota of four overs. Both the bowlers bowled with a lot of firepower during the powerplay and reduced India to 76 runs all out within just 11.4 overs, handing India their worst defeat in terms of margin of runs in T20Is.

The famed Indian batting line-up comprising the big hitters were no match on the day to the express pace, bounce and movement of England bowling as only four batters managed to score a double digit score. The win has England an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series as the first match was washed out due to rain.

Indian captain, Shreyas Iyer’s winless streak continues, now extending to five games and this team under the stewardship of Gautam Gambhir look a disjointed unit. In the crowd was the birthday boy and former Indian captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni who was left to see the unpretty sight of India get dismantled quite cheaply.

Earlier in the game, batting first England put up a big score of 201 runs for seven wickets, thanks to opener Phil Salt’s brilliant innings of 70. The all-rounder, Sam Curran also contributed with the bat, inflicting a late assault on the Indian bowler, scoring an unbeaten 41 runs.

It would be fair to say now that the match was practically over when India was reduced to 52 for 5 in the first five overs. Indian poor performance as highlighted by some poor shot selection by the batters and total lack of will to guts it out there and put up a fight when the bowlers were right on top of them.

Adding to the poor performance with the bat, India took some baffling calls. A slogger like Harshit Rana was sent at number seven ahead of a far superior batter Shivam Dube. This is something that raised some serious eyebrows. The young batter, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi once again showed glimpses of supreme batting abilities by hitting a couple of sixes, one each off Jofra Archer and Josh Tongue but his stay at the crease ended within five deliveries, scoring 13 runs.

A sharp bouncer which was directed on his right shoulder saw the 15-year-old go for a hook shot but it only ended up landing safely in Jos Butler’s gloves behind the wickets. Before Sooryavanshi got out, his opening partner, Abhishek Sharma was holed out in the deep extra cover region, an area where has been dismissed quite a few times before.

Number three batter for India, Ishan Kishan, hit one six but was out in no time and captain Iyer fell while trying to flick archer behind square, and found the only fielder placed there. As compared to the Indian batting unit, the bowler put up a much-improved performance with both pacers Harshit Rana and Prince Yadav picking up two wickets. The spinners were quite disappointing on the day though and went for plenty of runs. Axar’s spell produced one wicket but he gave away 49 runs, while Varun bowled only three overs and went wicketless.