AHMEDABAD: India spinner Yuzvendra Chahal on Friday became the leading wicket-taker for the Men in Blue in the shortest format of the game.
The 30-year-old surpassed pacer Jasprit Bumrah in the first T20I against England here at the Narendra Modi Stadium. Chahal dismissed England opener Jos Buttler (28) and scalped his 60th wicket in the T20I cricket.
Playing in his 46th game, Chahal surpassed Bumrah, who has 59 scalps from 50 T20Is with an economy rate of 6.66 runs per over.
The opening game of the five-match series was also Chahal’s 100th international match. The leg-spinner made his T20I debut against Zimbabwe in Harare in 2016. In ODI cricket, Chahal has 92 wickets from 54 matches.England defeated India by eight wickets with 27 balls to spare to gain a 1-0 lead in the five-match series. Chasing 125, Jason Roy and Jos Buttler starred with the bat as they played knocks of 49 and 28 respectively.After the loss, India skipper Virat Kohli said that his side displayed a poor batting performance and as a result, the visitors made them pay.
“We just weren’t aware enough of what to do on that kind of pitch. Lack of execution of some of the shots and something we have to address as batsmen. It wasn’t an ideal day on the park. You have to accept your faults and come back in the next game with much more intent and clarity of plan. The wicket probably did not allow you to hit the kind of shots you wanted to, Shreyas’ innings was an example on how you can use the depth of the crease and ride the bounce. It was a below-par batting performance and England made us pay,” Kohli told host broadcaster Star Sports at the post-match presentation.
“We looked to try few things but as a batting side you have to accept the conditions in front of you, if the pitch allows you to play such kind of shots then yes. We did not give ourselves enough time to assess the conditions, Shreyas did that but there were too many wickets down to get past 150-160,” he added.
India and England will now lock horns in the second T20I at the same venue on Sunday.