A spectacular all-round performance from India, whose excellence with both bat and ball was personified by Hardik Pandya becoming their first player to score a half-century and take four wickets in the same game, consigned England to a crushing defeat in their first match since Eoin Morgan’s international retirement.
The Jos Buttler era started as Morgan’s had ended: with the captain getting a duck. His wicket inside the opening over represented the most miserable start possible to England’s attempt to chase 199, a target they have successfully reached only three times in this format, and despite benefiting from some good luck and several dropped catches they ended up falling 50 runs short. “We’ve been outplayed today,” Buttler said. “India bowled fantastically well with the new ball, they put us under a lot of pressure and we couldn’t get back in the game.”
