In the India VS England’s 2nd T20 international, India bounced back in style and defeated team England by 7 wickets. The Indian team outperformed the guests after the disappointing opening T20. What worked for the hosts was the change in squad and replacing the almost-always reliable Shikhar Dhawan and Axar Patel. Dhawan and Patel were replaced by the debutants Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan.

England bats first, Puts respectable total on board

The Indian team won the toss and elected to bowl first. Team England looked uncomfortable right from the beginning like its opponent in the first T20. Pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar struck gold in the first over of the game and sent opener Jos Butler back to the pavilion. However, Dawid Malan and Jason Roy started to find their footing despite the worrisome start and started hitting fours and sixes.

In both Washington Sundar’s and Hardik Pandya’s over, Malan shows his intent and played some wonderful strokes. However, Roy seemed out of his element and tried to break the shackles by playing multiple reverse sweeps off Chahal. Although the first few sweeps didn’t amount to much, a few deliveries later the bat met the ball in such a way that the maximum was inevitable. Malan on the other hand was dismissed by Chahal as an LBW. Although Malan took to the umpire and asked for a DRS, he was denied a grace and was sent back to the dressing room.

The 63-run-partnership was the highest that England could achieve in the game. However, Roy continued to punish bad deliveries and tried to take his team to a respectable total. Unfortunately for England, his efforts soon met an end thanks to a brilliant fielding by Bhuvneshwar Kumar off Sundar’s delivery. Roy played a commendable 46-run-inning.

In the 13th and 14th over England again found some footing and Morgan went after Shardul Thakur, but Bairstow on the other end gave his wicket to Sundar. Indian bowlers soon put England under a chokehold as the latter could only hit 1 boundry between the crucial 14th and 19th over. Both Shardul Thakur and Bhuvneshwar Kumar didn’t leave much space for the England batsmen to open their arms and the team could only score 29 runs in those 5 overs. Eventually England ended their share of 20 overs with 164 runs, at least 20-25 runs short of their aim.

Indian Chase Begins: Ishan Kishan and Captain Kohli weaves magic

Chasing a somewhat respectable target, India too had a jittery start. KL Rahul continued on his bad form and after three consecutive dots edged a Sam Curran delivery and gifted the England wicket keeper Jos Butler an easy catch. However, debutant Ishan Kishan showed his capability and played an opening inning worth remembering. Playing the difficult deliveries cautiously, Kishan slammed the bad ones with an aggression of a 22-year-old boy.

Meanwhile Virat Kohli, who has been having a tussle with bad form, gave Indian fans a reason to rejoice. The Indian skipper ran between the wickets like a gazelle, hit the bad deliveries to the boundaries and ensured India doesn’t lose its momentum. Although, he looked to be going back to the dressing room at one instance when he was about to be caught, lady luck saved him and Ben Stokes dropped the catch.

Kishan brought his half-century in style through two back-to-back sixes but with one mistimed shot off Adil Rashid’s delivery, he too was sent back to pavilion. However, theatrical superstar Rishabh Pant came and scored a quickfire 26 runs off just 13 balls hitting 2 boundaries and 2 maximums.

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However, in an attempt to finish the game as quickly as possible, Pant flicked a delivery and gave Bairstow a simple catch. The chase though, was almost on the verge of an end. Virat Kohli gave the final blows and hit a magnificent six off Tom Curran and took India to the victory, levelling off the 4-T20 series 1-1. The Indian skipper also seemed to have found his form again, playing an unbeaten 73-run-knock after scoring two ducks in the previous two matches.

Twitter reaction after India leveled the series 1-1.

After the match ended, the cricketing fraternity took to the micro-blogging platform Twitter and gave their remarks: