6 takeaways from India’s T20I series win against England

Suryakumar, Ishan’s arrival

One of the biggest positives for India was the arrival of Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan. The Mumbai Indians (MI) duo, who struck a half-century each in their respective debut innings, have further strengthened India’s batting line-up.

Hardik Pandya’s bowling

After a gap of more than a year, Hardik returned to bowling last November. But he had bowled only a couple of overs. During the T20I series against England, Hardik played as a full-fledged all-rounder, bowling 17 overs in 5 games. He picked up 3 wickets, along with 86 runs he scored with the bat. A fast bowling all-rounder is a good news any day.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar

After spending a considerable amount of time being sidelined due to injuries, Bhuvi’s return was easily one of the best things for India in this series. He picked up 4 wickets in 5 games and was certainly handy in the absence of ace pacer Jasprit Bumrah.

KL Rahul’s form

After scoring 1, 0, 0, 14 in the first four T20Is, Rahul was dropped for the decider game. The Karnataka batsman will be desperate to score some runs in the upcoming ODI series.

Kohli-Rohit opening

After Rahul’s failure, Kohli promoted himself as Rohit’s opening partner and remained unbeaten on 80 in the fifth T20I. After the series win, Kohli said that the middle-order looked strong to him and he would like to continue opening the innings. In this case, Rahul will find it difficult to find a place in the team.

6th bowler

India did not play with six bowlers in all games but going forward, it will be best if they did. In the series-decider fixture, India did play six bowlers and that made a lot of difference. India should look to form their XIs with two all-rounders (Hardik and Jadeja/Washington), along with four other bowlers – most likely Bumrah, Bhuvi, Shardul Thakur and Chahal/Kuldeep/Axar.