England vs India, 1st T20I at Southampton, ENG v IND, Jul 07 2022 - Ball by Ball Commentary

9.55pm Terrific Thursday if you're an India fan. Hope you enjoyed ESPNcricinfo's coverage. Rest assured, England will look to come roaring back for match #2 on Saturday, against an India side that is set to look quite different. On behalf of Andrew Miller and Chandan Duorah, this is Sreshth Shah saying goodbye!

Hardik Pandya, the Player of the Match: "Last time when I played in England, I took a four-for and scored 30-odd runs. Enjoying my cricket right now. I want success but a lot of time I spend on fitness and my skillsets. Because of the long break that I had, I wanted to get into rhythm. (Bowling quickly) That was a conscious decision when I decided I want some time off from the game. When I know I can't give my 100%, there's no point for Hardik Pandya to play. I'm happy. (Leadership in IPL and India) I've always been a kind of individual who has liked responsibility and enhance my game. Captaincy adds some responsibility but for me, I have always been a responsible player - like this."

Winning captain Rohit Sharma: "Great performance from ball one. There was an intent shown from all the batters although the pitch was really good so you could back your shots. At no point did we feel we were getting ahead of ourselves, we played cricketing shots. Looking at the larger picture, you try to back your basics. You got to make use of the six overs (with the bat). We've spoken about our approach - sometimes it comes off, sometimes it doesn't. That's what this sport is, that's what makes it challenging. It's something we have spoken of, and all the players need to buy into it, not just 1-2 players. (Hardik) The way he has prepared himself right from the IPL till now has been wonderful. What I was impressed was...was his bowling. He wanted to do a lot more of it, and he came bowled quick, used variations, got rewards too. Not to forget his batting too. (Powerplay bowling) It is something we took into consideration. Its why we wanted to bat. At 8 o clock, there's nip in the air, we wanted to utilise that. You stop them in the powerplay, you have a lot of control on the game. (Dropped catches) We were sloppy in the field. Those catches should've been taken. We want to set a high standard in that department. Not proud of it."

Losing captain Jos Buttler: "We were outplayed today. India bowled fantastically well, we couldn't get back from there. Thought we came back well with the ball in the second half. They were a little bit above bar, but their ball swung quite consistently early on and got wickets. Chris Jordan to come away with figures like that - he did fantastically well. Bhuvneshwar Kumar can swing it on most places. It swung more than usual, we probably had to hit one to the stands to reduce the swing (smiles). There's a number of guys out due to schedule or injuries and given some boys some chances. Parkinson stood up to the challenge of bowling late in the innings."

Presentation coming up soon. Stand-in coach VVS Laxman will relished this win, but Dravid will take over for the next two. Almost everything India did today turned out to be the right choice. Hardik offering four overs, that too while looking like a dangerous wicket-taking bowler, will give India the most joy for sure.

9.37pm In T20 terms, this is a demolition job. Rohit set the tone with the bat early, Hooda and Suryakumar chipped in with 30s, and Hardik with the only fifty of the game. Then with the ball, it was Bhuvneshwar's menacing swing bowling that set the tone, Roy failed to get going, Hardik ended up with four, and despite the innumerable dropped catches, India cruise to a very comfortable win. Don't forget the four wickets shared by Chahal and Arshdeep either. Join T20 Time Out for now with Ashley Giles and Wasim Jaffer

Deep: "As much as I love Kohli's versatile all-format technique - have to say, the T20I world has moved on from that. SKY and Hooda offer a lot more firepower even if they can stay in there for 15-20 balls. And I would say swap Ishan for Pant. For all the talk of big hitting, his adaptability has been underwhelming at this level."

Azweer: "Winning continuous matches doesn't matter. Winning a World Cup does matter."

Vishu: "@swathi the point is to test your bench strength. Even if the XI you go with has the usual suspects you always have to account for injury and your ability to weather it."

swathi: "I feel both the teams are wasting this opportunity without putting up their potential WC XI. Specially India, we try everything and finally we will go with Same Rohit, Virat, Shreyas, Pant and Bumrah. SO what is the point?" -- England have always believed in rest and rotation in what is always a packed year of cricket ever since Covid started. India are now going with that philosophy too. But Virat, Pant, Bumrah are in the squad for the next two games. They just got a break after the Test that ended just 2 days ago.

Final over of the evening. Arshdeep to bowl out.

Ashish: "So much talk about the target being under par. Looks like england T20 batters have been caught napping by some very good Indian bowling." -- The poor powerplay against the swinging ball did the trick tonight.

Arun Shankar: "England could have had Root in the T20 playing XI just because he always plays spoil sport against India" -- Don't forget the ramps and the reverse ramps.

Jake Daniel: "Hardik earns his best batting and bowling figures in the same match."

Ben : "This is what happens when you leave a specialist captain like Eoin Morgan out of your cricket team. Disappointed in English cricket here. You have the world's most special specialist captain and he doesn't play? That's crazy!" -- Nobody dropped Morgan. He quit internationals himself!

Arshdeep for his third over.