Southampton, July 7: Hardik Pandya led India’s aggressive batting display with a blistering 33-ball 51 as the visitors posted a challenging 198 for eight against England in the first T20 International here on Thursday.
This was Hardik’s first T20I half-century, helping India score at a brisk pace in the middle overs after Rohit Sharma (24 off 14 balls), Deepak Hooda (33 0ff 17) and Suryakumar Yadav (39 off 19) set it up with their enterprising knocks.
Motoring along at 178 for five at the end of the 17th over, India, however, failed to finish their innings with a flourish on a belter of a pitch.
Rohit got India off to a brisk start. His boundary-hitting forced his English counterpart Jos Buttler to introduce spin as early as the third over.
After taking some stick, Moeen Ali came back strongly to dismiss the India skipper just when he was beginning to look ominous, with a delivery that drifted away for Rohit to nick it to Buttler.
Deepak Hooda started from where he left off in the previous game at Malahide, smashing Moeen high over long-on for two massive sixes. Moeen enjoyed his second breakthrough in the form of Ishan Kishan, who did not look to be in control of his pull shots.
Hooda started with a six, while Suryakumar Yadav began his innings with a four, sweeping Moeen over backward square leg. Amid the flurry of boundaries, India lost Hooda as he failed to connect to a Jordan delivery that was going down leg.
One big-hitter was replaced by another, as Hardik Pandya joined Suryakumar in the middle to continue the aggression. In no time, Hardik started dealing in boundaries and even though Suryakumar got out, there was no stopping India’s charge.
Hardik kept finding the fence and a missed stumping off Parkinson, when the batter was on 37, compounded England’s woes. But they did manage to get Hardik after he had got to his fifty.
Innings report updated at 12:30 am IST. (PTI)
