Afghanistan took England to the very end and almost caused an upset in the first T20I match at Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi. England were in trouble early on as they lost wickets at regular intervals and was 57/6 in 9.2 overs. However, some resilient batting later on from the lower-order English batsmen helped them post a respectable total of 142.
Spinners ruled the roost for Afghanistan as they picked up six wickets, despite the track not offering a lot of spin. In reply, Afghanistan never looked like being in the contest at any point as they kept losing wickets and failed to build partnerships with the highest being 25 and fell short of the target by 15 runs.
Here are the major stats from the game:
1 – This match is the first ever T20I to be held at Feroz Shah Kotla. Incidentally, Delhi has hosted the highest number (78) of T20s for any Indian venue.
1 – Liam Plunkett was the first bowler to bowl a maiden in the match. It was also his first ever T20I maiden.
1 – This is the first time that a team has won a T20I match after having lost five wickets for 50 or fewer runs.
1 – This is the first time that three batsmen have been dismissed ‘caught and bowled’ in a World T20 match.This is also the fourth T20I match that this has happened.
2 – This was only the second time that England lost four wickets in the powerplay in T20Is. The previous instance it happened was against Australia in 2013.
2 – This was Eoin Morgan's second duck in T20Is. His first duck was against Australia in 2013.
3 – This is the third time that England have lost five wickets for a score of 50 or lesser in T20Is. The last two times it happened was against New Zealand in 2013 and against Netherlands in 2014.
6 – The number of wickets taken by spinners against England is the joint-highest in a T20I.
11 – England conceded 11 runs in the 19th over. This was more than the number of runs they conceded in overs 6 to 12.
15 – Feroz Shah Kotla became the fifteenth venue to host a T20I in India. India has the highest number of T20I venues, with no other country having more than 10.
16 – England have not had an opening stand of more than 50 in the last 16 T20I innings. Their last 50-plus stand was a 98 between Alex Hales and Michael Lumb ahead of the World T20 2014.
44 – England scored 44 runs in the last three overs of their batting innings. They were 98 at the end of 17 overs.
87 – The number of runs scored by England in the first 15 overs was their third lowest in T20Is while batting first.
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