By Neil Squires
July 7 (Reuters) – England blew away India at Trent Bridge on Tuesday to inflict a record T20 defeat on the world champions and take a 2-0 lead in the series with two matches to play.
Josh Tongue took 4-28 and Jofra Archer 3-29 as England’s pace attack powered them to a commanding 125-run victory.
India, who came into the series off the back of a 2-0 series defeat to Ireland, were bowled out for just 76 in the third T20.
“I think it was atrocious. I can’t use a better word, honestly,” said India captain Shreyas Iyer. “Losing by such a big margin is definitely not acceptable.
“First things first we need to accept this loss and completely go back to the drawing board and see what we did wrong.
“We’ve played awful cricket for sure. But there’s a lot of learnings from it as well. Players have to start thinking basically how to make an impact and create that momentum.
“Every individual has to think by themselves and see how they can win the matches and take that responsibility.”
The trouble started when Abhishek Sharma was caught for 10 at deep point by Phil Salt off Tongue.
Then 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, who hit two sixes in a five-ball 13, gloved Archer to Jos Buttler who took four catches and a stumping.
India needed Ishan Kishan and Iyer to steady the ship but they departed in successive balls to catches from Jacob Bethell.
Archer had the promoted Axar Patel caught behind with the final ball of the fifth over and India were reduced to the rubble of 52-5.
“You’re bowling at world-class batters so you’ve just got to keep hitting the spot. For the most part I’m happy with how it’s coming out,” said Archer, who was named player of the match.
“I enjoy bowling with Josh. I’ve bowled with him all summer, every game with him since I’ve been back. I really enjoy bouncing ideas off him. He also passes ideas on to me.
“He was brilliant. We are really similar so if I don’t get wickets he definitely, definitely will.”
England had built their total of 201-7 around an innings of 70 from Phil Salt. He played out a maiden from Arshdeep Singh in the first over of the innings before accelerating with three sixes in his 44-ball stay.
Prince Yadav impressed in just his third T20 international with 2-30 including the wicket of Buttler for 36 with a beautiful inswinging yorker with his first ball. Harshit Rana removed Bethell and Tom Banton with successive deliveries but Sam Curran’s unbeaten 41 from 24 balls took England to a competitive total.
The two sides move on to Bristol on Thursday for the fourth of the five-match series.
(Reporting by Neil Squires; editing by Clare Fallon)
