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ENG Vs IND, 1st T20: India Ride On Hardik Pandya Heroics To Beat England, Take 1-0 Series Lead

India play England in the second T20 in Birmingham on July 9.

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India players celebrate the fall of an England wicket in the first T20 on Thursday.
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Hardik Pandya played one of his finest matches in India colours as his 33-ball 51 and four wickets helped India beat England by 50 runs in the first T20 on Thursday in Southampton.

The swashbuckling all-rounder led India's aggressive batting display with a blistering 33-ball 51, propelling the visitors to 198 for 8 after they opted to bat first.

Hardik then finished with excellent figures of 4/33, destroying England's batting with his full quota of four overs. He became only the fourth player from full member nations to score a fifty and take four wickets in a T20 match. England's innings ended at 148 in 19.3 overs.

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This was Hardik's first T20 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.

Earlier, India captain Rohit Sharma won the toss and opted to bat first. The Live streaming of England vs India, first T20I was available on SonyLIV. Arshdeep Singh, the 23-year-old pacer who made his India debut took two wickets for 18 runs in 3.3 overs. He got the cap for the skipper himself.

Playing XIs:

England: Jason Roy, Jos Buttler (c & wk), Dawid Malan, Moeen Ali, Liam Livingstone, Harry Brook, Sam Curran, Chris Jordan, Tymal Mills, Reece Topley, Matthew Parkinson.

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India: Rohit Sharma (c), Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Axar Patel, Harshal Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal.

This is nothing less than a revenge match for India, who lost to England in the rescheduled Test in dramatic fashion. But none of the players who played in the Edgbaston Test are not available for this time. So to speak, this is in every sense player audition ahead of the ICC T20 World Cup.

For England, this formally launches the Jos Buttler-era in white-ball cricket. Buttler took over the reins from Eoin Morgan as the full time
England limited-overs captain.

This is the 20th T20 meeting between England and India. They first met in September 2007, which was won by India by 18 runs. They last
played in March 2021, and India won it by 36 runs. Head-to-head, India led 10-9.

India and England have a 3-3 head-to-head record in the T20 series in seven. But India have won the last three.

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