England captain Jos Buttler admitted they couldn’t enforce the game after suffering a seven-wicket loss in the opening T20I against India at Eden Gardens, Kolkata on Wednesday. After they were put into bat by Suryakumar Yadav, England was skittled out for a paltry score of 132 runs as Varun Chakravarthy returned with impressive figures of 3-23 in his quota of four overs.
Jos Buttler top-scored with 68 runs but none of the other English batters could show much resistance with the bat. Arshdeep Singh got the ball to move around and accounted for Phil Salt and Ben Duckett. Hardik Pandya and Axar Patel also bagged two wickets apiece whereas Ravi Bishnoi also bowled a tight spell.
The visiting batters failed to get going against the spinners in the middle overs and they could not get any impetus into their innings as they kept losing wickets at regular intervals.
Indian spin trio of – Varun Chakravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, and Axar Patel – collectively returned with figures of 5-67 in the 12 overs they bowled.
Jos Buttler said in the post-match presentation, “There was a little bit in the wicket early on, probably didn’t expect that. It looked like a really good wicket, they found a little bit of movement and we lost a couple of wickets. But if you come through that phase, it’s a pretty good pitch and obviously a fast-scoring ground. Some really good players in there, we wanted to enforce the game that we want to play and we weren’t quite capable of doing that today against some good bowlers but we’re better for the run-out and we’re looking forward to the next one.”
On the other hand, Jofra Archer bowled four overs on the trot and returned with figures of 2-21 in his quota. Archer accounted for Sanju Samson and Indian skipper Suryakumar Yadav.
Showering praise on Archer and Mark Wood, who also bowled quick, Buttler said, “Archer) always looks good, he’s a superstar, he looked threatening. Thought he could have had a few more wickets there. Mark Wood was bowling fast as well. To see two of them operate in tandem is exciting. We want to be aggressive, we want to be watchable.”
The second T20I between India and England will be played at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai on Saturday.
