England vs India, First T20I: Match in Pictures
India kicked off their tour to England in the best possible way, beating the hosts by eight wickets in the first of the three T20I matches at Old Trafford on Tuesday.
Opting to bowl first, the Men In Blue restricted the hosts to 159 for 8 in their 20 overs on the back of a maiden five-wicket haul for Kuldeep Yadav, who took figures of 5 for 24 to derail the English innings.
Jos Buttler proved to be England's best batsman on the day, making a 46-ball 69 even as the others fell to the guile of Kuldeep at the other end. A late cameo of 29 runs from 15 balls from David Willey propelled England to a score they would have been very disappointed to reach after the start they got.
Then in the chase, Shikhar Dhawan fell early, but KL Rahul stepped up to smash his second hundred in this format, finishing on exactly 100 not out to help the visitors race away to a comfortable win.
The two teams meet again on Thursday for the second game in Cardiff and England certainly have a lot of thinking to do before that game on how to tackle the chinaman in a better fashion than what they did in the first game.
Here are the best images from the game:
1. Virat Kohli called it right at the toss and opted to bowl first. At the end of the first 5 overs, it did not seem the best decision, but his bowlers pulled things back brilliantly in the latter half of the innings.
2. The teams walked out to a packed house cheering them on in the stands. Despite the football going on simultaneously, 23,000 fans turned up for the game at Manchester and while their team did lose the game, even they might have appreciated the brilliance of KL Rahul with the bat in hand.