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A choking spell from Varun Chakaravarthy and a free-flowing Abhishek Sharma knock helped India thump England by seven wickets.
Suryakumar Yadav had no complaints from his ace spinner, Varun Chakaravarthy. (PC: Sportzpics)
A complete team performance, led by Varun Chakavarthy and Arshdeep Singh with the ball, and Abhishek Sharma with the bat, helped India school England with a seven-wicket win in the first of the five T20Is at the Eden Gardens.
The hosts took a 1-0 lead in the series, wasting a decent 68 (44) from visiting captain Jos Buttler. The next match will be in Chennai on Saturday, and England will have more than one issues to solve, and a few mirrors to look into before it.
After being put in to bat Buttler and Co. could only put up a sub-par 132 in the first innings, thanks to a three-wicket haul from Chakavarthy and two from Arshdeep.
In their reply, India scored just one run against a sizzling Jofra Archer in the first over but Sanju Samson took the lead, once again, from the second. He smashed 22 against Gus Atkinson to get going, which allowed Sharma to settle for a bit, before he meted the same treatment on Archer with 10 runs in the next over.
Mark Wood came on and racked some serious pace. Six runs in the fourth over seemed to have broken India’s momentum a bit and Buttler stuck with Archer.
Samson miscued a pull on the second ball to get out due to the extra pace. Two balls later, he took the pace off and used an increasingly popular plan against Suryakumar Yadav — slow on the toes — he took on the flick and got a thick leading edge for a catch. It was a rare three-ball duck for him.
Tilak Varma got a thick edge for the four next balls to put a smile on Archer’s face. But after that, it was only the Indians who smiled.
Sharma made the last over of the powerplay count and ended the phase at 63/2. He got dropped off Adil Rashid’s bowling and hit him with a 4,6,4, which was only stopped by the leg-spinner when the left-hander had reached 79(34).
Pandya and Varma finished off the formalities in the 13th over.
The first innings was completely dominated by India’s spinners — a big-up to the under-pressure Gautam Gambhir and his staff, who were being criticised for going with three spinners on what looked like a greenish track.
However, the platform was set by Arshdeep Singh. The left-arm quick continued his brilliant form from the Vijay Hazare Trophy and brought a variety of skills to the fore, first swinging the ball and then using the extra bounce available early on.
The latter skill took out opener Phil Salt on the third ball for a golden duck, cutting short his return to the Eden Gardens after a big season here for the Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL 2024. He came back in the third over and got Ben Duckett with brilliant seam movement.
Hardik Pandya was expensive initially, getting hit for a couple of boundaries by Buttler. A third over by Arshdeep — clearly requested by Gambhir from the pavilion — and Chakaravarthy’s tight opener closed the powerplay at 46/2.
India’s three spinners spun a web hereon. Chakaravarthy’s googlies had no answer from Harry Brook and Liam Livingstone and both got out in three balls.
Buttler hit Axar Patel for a couple of sixes to get him out of the attack but Ravi Bishnoi’s leg-spin proved too good for the skipper’s partners. He didn’t take a wicket but made Jacob Bethell eat up dots after the drink’s break in the 10th over.
Suryakumar Yadav saw the opportunity to bring back Pandya and he got Bethell out on the pull. It was a cue to bring Patel back and he got Jamie Overton quickly.
Bishnoi bowled four dots to Atkinson and Patel followed it up with four more. Atkinson then missed two ugly heaves — the first sneaked past Samson to run to the boundary and take England past the 100-run mark and the second got him stumped.
Buttler had reached a 34-ball 50 in the meantime but had grown visibly frustrated seeing the run-rate drop. He hit Chakaravarthy for a crisp six on the first ball of his last over, in the 17th of the innings, but the spinner came back, using the extra bounce to cramp him and make him pull one to the deep.
Nitish Kumar Reddy completed a stunning diving catch to sink England. Arshdeep bowled a quiet 19th and Hardik took out Archer on the fourth ball of the final over, before Samson hit the bulls-eye to catch Mark Wood short of a sneaky bye run on the last ball of the innings.
It kept England down to 132 and showcased just how hungry India were to not let the visitors breathe easy.
