Ahmedabad, March 15
Young Jharkhand batsman Ishan Kishan, making his international debut, struck 56 off 32 balls, hitting five fours and four sixers, while captain Virat Kohli made 73 not out off 49 balls as India won the second T20I against England by seven wickets to level the series 1-1.
Quite a good game for us. I think we ticked all the boxes we wanted to. Specially in the first innings with the ball. To give away only 34 in the last five, very smart bowling
Set a relatively modest target of 165, India cruised to victory in the 18th over when Kohli struck Chris Jordan for a six over fine leg.
After KL Rahul had fallen for a duck in the first over, a wicket-maiden bowled by Sam Curran, Kishan opened his account with a four off the first ball he faced in international cricket, glancing Jofra Archer to the boundary.
Kohli too began to strike boundaries and the two got the chase going, getting 12 runs off the fifth over, bowled by Chris Jordan.
Kishan hit his first six off Tom Curran, in the sixth over, and then struck two fours, with a drive through the covers and a pull behind square on the leg side.
It’s not easy when you come here and play your first game. I think when Tom Curran bowled his first ball and I smacked him for six, that was the moment I felt I can keep doing this. I don’t know if I’ll get this feeling again but I was feeling like ‘Finally I’m here.’
Kohli and Kishan welcomed Ben Stokes into the attack with a six each, taking 17 runs off the seventh over — 45 runs had come in three overs, and India were getting on top. Kishan struck Adil Rashid for two sixers off the first two balls of the 10th over, reaching his 50 with the second, off only 28 balls. However, Rashid had the last laugh when he trapped Kishan lbw off the final ball. But at 94/1 in 10 overs, India needed only 71 runs off the remaining overs.
Rishabh Pant came in and took up the attack, striking Rashid for a six, Sam Curran for a four and Jordan for a six and four. Having reached 26 off 12 balls, he went for another big shot and was caught at deep midwicket by Jonny Bairstow off Jordan.
India needed 35 runs off 38 balls at this stage. Kohli took charge at this stage, reaching his 50 with a six into the sight screen off Tom Curran.
Kohli finished the game with a 4-6 off consecutive balls off Jordan in the 18th over, reaching 3,000 T20I runs in the process.
Good job
Earlier, Indian bowlers had done very well in the last five overs to restrict England to 164/6. Jason Roy (46 off 35) and Dawid Malan (24 off 23) added 63 runs off 47 balls to push the innings towards a sizeable total.
At 130/4 in the 15th over, England looked set to reach close to 200, but the Indian bowlers conceded only 34 runs in the last five overs. Washington Sundar (2/29) and Shardul Thakur (2/29) were the pick of the bowlers.
