England beat India by 5 wickets and 2 balls to spare

Cardiff:

England beat India by 5 wickets and 2 balls to spare. Alex Hales was the star for England as he scored 58* off 41 balls. With 12 runs required in the final over, Hales smashed Bhuvneshwar Kumar for a six on the first ball and scored a boundary on the second ball, took a single of the third and David Willey completed another run to level the series the 3 match series, 1-1.

England have ended India’s longest T20 winning streak of seven consecutive wins. In another record, England continued their domination at Cardiff, winning all the 5 T20Is played here. It is the most victories by any team at a venue without loosing a T20I.

Earlier, The start was pretty poor for India, loosing 3 quick wickets in the powerplay – Rohit Sharma (5), Shikhar Dhawan (10) and KL Rahul (6). Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina steadied the Indian ship but the scoring rate was low and pressure was mounting. Raina fell to Adil Rashid for 27 off 20 balls. Virat scored 47 off 38 balls but got out at a wrong point. Then it was upto Dhoni and Pandya.

Dhoni who was playing his 500th international game scored a quickfire 32 which guided India to a score of 148/5 ,adding 22 runs in the last over of Jake Ball along with Pandya (12).

David Willey was the pick of the English bowlers. He picked up a wicket for a miserly 18 runs. Rashid, Ball and Plunkett also picked up a wicket each.

Chasing 149, England too didn’t have a good start. Umesh Yadav had two early scalps – Jason Roy (15) and Jos Buttler (14) . Chahal clean bowled Root (9) immediately after the powerplay. England were 44-3, then Captain Eoin Morgan (17) and Alex Hales, later Johnny Bairstow (28) and Hales took England closer to victory. Hales with his last over heroics won it for England. He was also awarded the Man of the Match.

The third T20I at Trent Bridge, Nottingham on 12 June will decide the winner of the series.