India lose opening T20I by 41 runs after visitors put up dominant all-round performance

ESPNcricinfo staff04-Mar-2019Strong hands from Tammy Beaumont, Danielle Wyatt and, especially, Heather Knight with the bat set up a comprehensive 41-run win for England in the first of their three T20Is against India in Guwahati on Monday.Asked to bat, England blazed off the blocks with an 89-run first-wicket stand between Beaumont, who went on to hit a half-century, and Wyatt, before Knight hammered a 20-ball 40 later in the innings to put the game well beyond India.India captain Smriti Mandhana on

Where India lost the match
I think in ODIs and in T20s, two wickets should not fall in a span of three or four balls. Our top three or four lost their wickets in a short period. I think that makes the batting order look very thin. It’s important as a batting unit to take responsibility and chase this kind of total. As a batter who is settled, our top four , we are playing for a long time now. I, Mithali [Raj], Jemi have to take more responsibility and bat more and take the time through (the finish line). We have to give a bit of cushion to the youngsters.
Whether her field placements were reactive with England exploiting areas made vacant by a player who was stationed there earlier
It was the first time I was leading for India. It was a good experience, with a lot of takeaways. As a captain, I need to learn from the mistakes I did today and also as a player. I don’t think the field setting was based on reactions. We had two sets of plan for each batter. So when the first plan wasn’t working, we went with the second. It was not due to where the batsmen was hitting the ball. Definitely, next time we will plan much better, and I will be more proactive.

Chasing 161 to go 1-0 up after they had won the preceding ODI series 2-1 in Mumbai, India went off the rails from the get-go. Katherine Brunt sent back debutant Harleen Deol first, and left-arm spinner Linsey Smith then put India firmly on the back foot by dismissing Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues, the big guns, off consecutive balls. And, just like that, India were in a big hole at 23 for 3 inside three-and-a-half overs.Mithali Raj didn’t last long either, and when Veda Krishnamurthy was sent back by Anya Shrubsole for 15 at the halfway mark, the scoreboard read a sorry 46 for 5.From there, all India could hope for was to keep the margin of defeat to a minimum, and the lower middle-order of Deepti Sharma (22 not out), Arundhati Reddy (18) and Shikha Pandey (23 not out) did well on that front. They ensured India survived their 20 overs, with Deepti and Pandey adding 43 runs for the last wicket, but that didn’t change the fact that England were the better team by far, on all counts, on the day.Katherine Brunt bowled with fire•PTI In the first half, Wyatt was the early aggressor after three quiet overs as she sent Deepti to the boundary thrice in the fourth over of the innings. There might have been a fourth had it not been for Poonam Yadav’s dive at short fine-leg.Beaumont joined in the fun soon, and by the end of the Powerplay, England were at 45 and coasting. The spread of the field didn’t change the script much either, as Mandhana, captaining India in Harmanpreet Kaur’s absence, looked short of ideas, changing the field after every other ball.There was at least one four in every over as Beaumont picked up speed and outscored Wyatt, till India got a lucky break when Wyatt made room for herself and slapped a delivery from Pandey straight to Mandhana in the covers.One wicket brought another as Radha Yadav, who had been expensive till then, got Natalie Sciver to hole out at square-leg, and that brought the scoring rate down a bit.At 124 for 2 with three overs to go, India had a chance of keeping England to under 150, but Knight chose the 18th over to change the tempo of the game altogether, hitting Reddy for five successive fours after Beaumont had turned the strike over first ball. It was poor bowling, but Knight was superb, sweeping the first, going over cover in the next two, and then smashing one through the covers and hammering the last past long-on.Two more fours came from the England captain’s bat in the next over too, off Deepti, before the bowler finally found joy off the last ball, getting Knight caught at long-on.Beaumont had quietly gone past her half-century by then and, going for a big one in the last over, was stumped off Radha. Her 57-ball 62 was an excellent effort, exactly what England needed to hold the innings together as Knight went hammer and tongs at the other end.The second game will be played on Thursday.