Hardik Pandya’s all-round display gives India opening T20 win over England

Jos Buttler ascended to the England captaincy promising to lead from the front, inspiring his side with the continued brilliance of his individual performances. Instead his period in permanent charge started as Eoin Morgan’s had ended: with a duck, as India shredded England’s top order in the opening powerplay to start the home side’s death spiral and power the tourists to victory by 50 runs.

Buttler’s wicket in the opening over represented the most miserable start possible to England’s attempt to chase 199, a target they have only successfully reached three times in this format, and their innings never recovered. From the start Bhuvneshwar Kumar and the debutant Arshdeep Singh had the ball swinging extravagantly – a feat the home side never managed – and bewitched English batters fell with a frequency more recently associated with Conservative ministers.

Hardik Pandya, having earlier scored a half-century for India, took most of the early wickets. Liam Livingstone also went without scoring, attempting a scoop and gloving a catch to Dinesh Karthik behind the stumps in the fifth over. Dawid Malan, the one English batter to find a semblance of form in this period, had been cleaned up a couple of balls previously.

A measure of England’s discomfort was the fact that when Jason Roy was dismissed just after the conclusion of the powerplay, caught after edging the ball in a high arc towards third man, he had scored just four runs from 16 deliveries. A player whose career strike rate is 141.6, and who had never previously gone at less than 60 when he had scored at all, this time went at just 25.

At this point England were 33 for four, while at the same stage of their innings India had been 66 for two, and their position already