ENG Women vs India (W), 1st T20I at Northampton, IND-W in ENG, Jul 09 2021 - Match Result

9.50pm: Thanks for sticking around, sorry about the soggy finish. Annesha's report is in and we'll be back for more on Sunday, when the rest of England might just have their minds elsewhere. Still, Hove should be a decent support act. Until then, from Hemant, Ranjith and myself, it's cheerio for now!

9.38pm: Let's have some presentations, starting with India captain Harmanpreet Kaur: "We knew after 830pm there could be rain, so that's why we were batting according to DL, but we kept losing wickets. If there were two-three more overs, we felt we could make it. Losing wickets back to back, that was the reason. We fielded really well, there's a lot of improvement, Shikha did really well in the bowling. We need to think of the boundaries we are giving up. [Harman, Deol catches] Definitely, there's a lot of improvements, we want to keep going with that, fielding is very important. Every game is important, today was unfortunate because of rain, but there are two more games for us to prove ourselves."

England captain Heather Knight: "Still got a series to win, important we turn up at Hove. Really pleased today, thought Nat was outstanding in the middle over, brilliant partnership with Amy. Clinical with the ball, looked to take wickets early, so very pleasing. [Sciver] It was awesome, really aggressive. Nat hits the ball so hard, she struck it cleaner than ever. Danni and Tammy deserve a mention at the top as well, been a while since we had a 50 partnership. [Jones] She's moved down from opening, feel she's in a great position to win us games, four-five are really important [positions] and she's well suited to the role. [Rain] Unfortunately it's set in, would have been good to get out there."

Nat Sciver is Player of the Match: "It just came together, I was really enjoying it. The wicket was nice, it was good. [Good form] Definitely, got an opportunity to bat with more freedom, good partnership at the top and we've got a strong line-up so that helps. [Jones stand] Once you felt comfortable, you could really hit through the line, so we managed to get a good partnership together. Our plans in T20, we know them really well, and have had a lot of success, so it was a good game."

9.30pm: The rain has won here, as have England - by 18 runs on DLS. The decision was taken that they wouldn't be able to get the ground ready, even if it does stop raining soon. So England take the spoils, largely thanks to a rambunctious stand between Nat Sciver and Amy Jones, which took them out of reach. India can still tie the points series, but will need to win the next two games, at Hove and Chelmsford, in order to do so.

9.25pm: Doesn't sound as if there has been much improvement at Northampton, and we will start losing overs soon. Remember, an England win would put them 8-4 up in the multi-format series, with only four points left to play for.

"Reduced overs might be good for team India," reckons Ashish. "Trying to get 40 in 3 overs vs 10 runs a over for next 10 overs, first one seems more plausible." DLS can do funny things, often to the benefit of chasing teams...

"What would India's DLS par score be right now had they not lost any wickets?" It would have been 63 after nine overs, Noor. So India still short

9.10pm: Full covers are now in place on the square. "We had that rain earlier in Luton," says Adam, "it lasted about 10 minutes but was very heavy." Still seems to be coming down currently. We won't start losing overs until 9.31pm, so that's something

Prasad: "Classic example of lack of match awareness. When smrithi 2 those 2 4s India were ahead on DLS. She could have taken a single and looked for loose balls the next over. But now India lost 2 wickets pushing the DLS score much further." To be fair to her, Mandhana was just starting to look good - she almost hit that pull too well

9.05pm: Looks like a solid blob of rain has just mooched up from London, so we're going to have a bit of a delay here. Not sure how much extra time there is to play with, but sit tight and we'll hopefully have better news soon

And with that the umpires decide enough is enough, the rain is coming down pretty hard and the covers are being dragged into place. The DLS par score at the end of this over would be 74, so India are some way off as things stand - but let's hope we can get back out