India vs England: First Men’s T20 Cricket International – Live | 20

On January 22, 2025By Littum

Key events

4th over: England 35-2 (Buttler 29, Brook 0) Buttler cuts Hardik through square leg for successive boundaries. Then he pushes a slower ball just short of the bowler, who collects and throws on the stumps. Buttler has to make splits to ensure he is in his crease and then he falls over. The throw missed anyway.

England want Buttler out there for as long as possible because he looks good. He pulls a short ball to the midwicket boundary and then touches a loose delivery to fine leg for his fourth four over. Buttler has 29 from 16 balls.

“Just the mention of the pan-generational talent Jasprit Bumrah reminded me of his current status as my very favorite opposition player,” says Tom Hopkins. “I think man’s love is never stronger than for someone you’ll only ever see as a neutral person who hurts your team. I was trying to figure out my all-time, pan-sport number one in that respect. Virat was high on the list during his duels with Jimmy. Hold on, it’s Gheorghe Hagi, isn’t it?”

Does Richie Aprile count?

3rd over: England 17-2 (Buttler 12, Brook 0) Harry Brook is beaten by his first ball. Arshdeep bowls majestically and has figures of 2-0-7-2.

WICKED! England 17-2 (Duckett c Rinku b Arshdeep 4)

Ben Duckett will face no more balls. He hit the one boundary, an audacious reverse flick over short third, but sliced the next delivery – a nice outswinger from Arshdeep – high in the air. Rinku Singh ran back from cover to take a beautifully judged catch.

Ah. Ben Duckett is out for 4. Photo: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

2nd over: England 12-1 (Duckett 0, Buttler 11) Having seen the first over, England will be relieved that Mohammed Shami is not playing. In his absence, the new ball is taken by Hardik Pandya. Buttler smashes his second ball down the ground for four and cuts the fifth deliberately over backward point for another. A single allows him to keep striking. Ben Duckett hasn’t faced a ball yet.

“Speaking of generational talent,” says Kim Thonger, “how many English Test cricketers in the last 100 years can match what Tuffers has achieved with ball, bat, subject and beer can. OK, not with bat, and not all the time with ball. But still , with trays and beer cans, there are not many.”

1st over: England 3-1 (Duckett 0, Buttler 2) A foul field allows Buttler to get off the mark with a couple. It was the bounce that did for Salt, but Arsheep got some extravagant sideways movement throughout the race. An excellent start.

WICKED! England 0-1 (Salt c Samson b Arshdeep 0)

A great start to the Bazball Nights era: Phil Salt has gone for a third ball sand. He was caught off guard by some sharp bounce from Arshdeep, got into a terrible position and peaked the simplest of catches to Sanju Samson. It was a pretty ugly delivery to face early in any format, never mind when you’re looking to attack.

Phil Salt walks in the first over. Not a brilliant start from England. Photo: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

The left-arm quick Arshdeep Singhan excellent bowler in this format, will take the first over.

Phil Salt and Ben Duckett are ready to go. It’s time for the first episode of ECB’s new spin-off, Bazball Nights.

In other news, India are without multi-generation multi-format talent Jasprit Bumrah due to injury. In fact, only four of today’s XI started the T20 World Cup final last year: SKY, Axar Patel, Hardik Pandya and Arshdeep Singh. But India’s talent pool is among the deepest in cricket history (I was going to say deepest and then I remembered Australia A batting line-up from 1994–95), so don’t bet the farm on England.

Reading before match

Tanya Aldred is a genius. You know it, I know it. This is the latest evidence.

“Hey Rob, I’m looking forward to this,” says Luke Dealtry. “On Luke Littler’s triumph, I think you wrote that he is a “multi-generational talent”. I have been wondering if this is just over-inflation or something worth investigating. Which cricketers are multi-generational vs to generations? Perhaps Don Bradman is the only ‘generational talent’ in sports. Please expand.”

See, we live in a world where multiple goats can seemingly coexist; I’m just trying to survive out there!

As with the term “world class”, I don’t really know the exact definition of “generational talent”. How can Phil Foden and Jude Bellingham both be generational talents? Doesn’t that just mean they’re really good?

It might, just might, be a load of pompous nonsense. And by using the term “multi-generational talent”, I might be the most pompous eejit of all. I always wanted to be the best in the world at something.

Keep news

The great Mohammed Shami – who has not played for India since the 2023 ODI World Cup final due to injury – was expected to return but has not made the cut. England have gone with pace; India have three frontline spinners in Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy and Ravi Bishnoi.

India Abishek, Samson (wk), Tilak, Suryakumar (c), Hardik, Rinku, Reddy, Axar, Bishnoi, Varun, Ashdeep.

England Salt (week), Duckett, Buttler (c), Brook, Livingstone, Bethell, J Overton, Atkinson, Archer, Rashid, Wood.

India win the toss

Indian captain Suryakumar Yadav says the wicket looks a bit sticky. The dew should help the ball slide when India bat. Jos Buttler would also have been first.

England named their team early, as Baz usually does. It’s seriously exciting – possibly a little too exciting, because on a bad day the pace attack will go a long way.

Salt (week), Duckett, Buttler (c), Brook, Livingstone, Bethell, J Overton, Atkinson, Archer, Rashid, Wood.

Taha Hashim’s preview

There are so many talented young cricket writers and broadcasters around and that is Taha onsitting at the top table.

India’s T20 squad is radically different from the names picked for the ODIs as the more storied names – Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah – return. But depth is rarely an issue here and Sharma and Kohli have been replaced with little trouble following their T20 retirements following last year’s World Cup win in the Caribbean.

A fresh top three of Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma and Tilak Varma have six T20 international centuries between them in that period. They might even welcome the extra English pace at Eden Gardens, which hosted the highest successful T20 run chase in April last year, when a Jonny Bairstow hundred helped Punjab Kings score 262 with eight wickets to spare against Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League.

India have won 13 out of 15 since lifting the trophy in Barbados, made with seven totals north of 200, including a staggering 297 for six in a 133-run win against Bangladesh in October. These numbers are frightening, certainly even for someone as relentlessly optimistic as McCullum.

Preamble

Buckle up, buckle up, choose your own metaphor. Things are about to get lively. Three years ago, Brendon McCullum injected the spirit of white-ball cricket into a hapless England Test team. Now he takes responsibility for the actual white ball team. As spin-offs go, this could be anything from Frasier to Baywatch Nights. The only guarantee is that it won’t be boring.

This is the first of eight matches on England’s short tour of India: five T20s, three ODIs. The match starts at 13:30 GMT, 19:00 in Kolkata.