India unleashes 'lethal' Varun Chakravarthy to secure dominant win against England in first T20

KOLKATA: India won the first of the five-match Twenty20 series against England by seven wickets on Tuesday. Batting first at the Eden Gardens, India bowled out England for 132 runs in the allotted 20 overs. The lacklustre yet comfortable chase was over in just 12.5 overs.

Varun Chakravarthy took three wickets while Arshdeep Singh, Hardik Pandya and Akshar Patel with two wickets each ripped apart the England batting lineup. Abhishek Sharma who scored 79 runs including five fours and eight sixes in just 34 balls and Sanju Samson who scored 26 runs including four fours and a six in 20 balls made India's work easy.

India won the toss and elected to field. Arshdeep Singh got off to a good start by sending back English openers Phil Salt and Ben Duckett in his very first spell. Jos Buttler (68) and Harry Brook (17) started to get the game rolling. But with the team score at 65 in the eighth over, Varun Chakravarthy dismissed Brooke and then Liam Livingston (0) shattering England's hopes. Buttler then continued to fight at one end but wickets started falling like a pack of cards on the other side. Buttler was sent back by Varun in the 17th over with the team score at 109. The England captain hit 68 runs off 44 balls with eight fours and two sixes.

Sanju and Abhishek Sharma started the innings for India in reply. Sanju, who scored 26 runs in 20 balls including four fours and a six, was dismissed by Gus Atkinson.