As It Happened: England beats India to draw level

Alex Hales made a brilliant fifty as England beats India by five wickets to draw the series 1-1.

India will aim to seal the T20I series in Cardiff.

 

England has won the toss and elected to bowl first.

Teams:

India: Virat Kohli (c), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Suresh Raina, Manish Pandey, MS Dhoni (wk), Dinesh Karthik, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Hardik Pandya, Siddarth Kaul, Umesh Yadav.

England: Eoin Morgan (c), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Jake Ball, Jos Buttler (wk), Sam Curran, Alex Hales, Chris Jordan, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, David Willey, Dawid Malan.

Preview

A dominant opening win has set the tone and India would look to ensure that a spin-wary England remains on the back-foot when the two sides clash in the second T20 International, on Friday.

Kuldeep Yadav took 5-24 and KL Rahul scored an unbeaten second T20I ton as the Men in Blue produced a fine all-round display to stun the hosts by eight wickets in Manchester for an early lead on this tour.

A win tomorrow would seal the three-match series for Virat Kohli and Co.

In fact, India stands on the cusp of a sixth successive T20I series’ win - a run stretching back to its 2-1 win over New Zealand at home in November 2017.

In all, they have been unbeaten in bilateral T20I series since September last year.