Rishabh Pant smashes century and guides India to ODI series victory over England

Rishabh Pant cracked his maiden one-day international century for India as they defeated England by five-wickets at Old Trafford to seal a 2-1 series victory on Sunday.

Chasing 260 for victory – after captain Jos Buttler top-scored for England with 60 – India lost skipper Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli early on to Reece Topley, before Hardik Pandya took charge with a rapid 71 off 55 balls in the company of Pant.

The pair stitched together 133 runs for the fifth wicket to set up a comfortable win, with Pant then stepping up the gears and going on to score his maiden ton in the format after Pandya fell to a spectacular catch by Ben Stokes off the bowling of Brydon Carse.

India's explosive wicketkeeper batsman took them home with 47 balls to spare by reverse-sweeping Joe Root for four, after he had smashed David Willey for five boundaries in the previous over.

Captain Rohit admitted he was “very pleased” with his team's performance over the T20 and ODI series. “We came here, wanted to achieve something as a group in white-ball, and we did,” he said.

“Moving forward there are things we need to improve but pleased with the effort. We were here last time and we were beaten I remember.

“It is not easy place to come and win games but the way we played entire white-ball leg was fantastic. Wanted to do it for a long period of time, to achieve it was brilliant.”

As for his England counterpart, it was a second 2-1 series defeat to India on in a row after losing the T20 series by the same margin.

“It was a good wicket once you got yourself in so we were a bit light with the bat. But the start we made with the ball gave us a chance and that missed stumping [of Pant when on 18] cost us,” said Buttler, who took over as captain from