India vs England first T20I: Three key reasons behind India’s success

India started their long English summer with a resounding win in the first T20I in Manchester. Indian skipper Virat Kohli won the toss and without any hesitation, he decided to chase.

England batted well in the Powerplay but lost their way in the middle overs as they set a moderate target of 160 for India to chase.

India batted brilliantly and chased down the target quite easily with 10 balls to spare. Let's focus on three key reasons for India's victory.

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#1 England’s lack of imagination in the middle overs

We all know that the English players always struggle against good quality wrist spin bowlers, and this game was no exception either. The likes of Alex Hales, Joe Root, Morgan had a dismal game and failed to read Kuldeep Yadav.

Instead of going for the big hits, they should have rotated the strike against the slow bowlers.

England need to bat sensibly against Kuldeep and Chahal if they want to make a come back in the series.

#2 Kuldeep Yadav’s fantastic bowling

Kuldeep weaved his magic against England in the first T201

On a day where India's most reliable new ball bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Chahal struggled, Kuldeep showed his class and guile with the ball to strangle England. After being sent into bat, the English openers Jason Roy and Jos Buttler, provided a blistering start. Roy scored a quick fire 30 before he got out to Umesh Yadav.

But Buttler kept the pressure on with his fantastic improvisation of stroke play and England looked good to get close to 200 hundred at one stage of their innings.

But the complexion of the match was changed when Kuldeep Yadav came into the ball in the 10th over of the match. Kuldeep found his mark straight away and put the pressure back on to the English batters. He picked up three wickets in quick succession, that stopped the run flow. He also picked up the wicket of the in-form Jos Buttler in the death overs to finish with figures of 5 for 21.

The English batsmen struggled to pick his variation and never looked comfortable at any point in time. Kuldeep was ably supported by Umesh Yadav, who also picked up a couple of important wickets. Kuldeep became the first left-arm wrist spinner to get 5 wickets in a T20I’s.

KL Rahul’s brilliant knock

Rahul scored a terrific hundred

Rahul had a terrific IPL season and carried his form into this match. India lost Dhawan very early in their innings, Rahul came into bat at number 3 and never looked back. He was at his fluent best, and played some elegant shots right throughout the innings. Rahul was particularly severe against Moeen Ali.

The English bowlers did their best but all their effort went in vain as Rahul went on to score a magnificent hundred at an astonishing strike rate of 187.04. He became the second Indian player after Rohit Sharma to score two hundred in T20 International.

Rahul grabbed the opportunity of being promoted up the order with both hands and took India to a convincing victory!