Shubman Gill and the bowlers' brilliance helped India draw first blood against England in the series opener with a four-wicket victory at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur on Thursday.
According to details, the visitors had decided to bat first against India, but the bowlers restricted them to 248 in 47.4 overs with England captain Jos Buttler (52) and Jacob Bethell (51) notched the fifties each.
Phil Salt (43) and Ben Duckett (32) were off to a decent start, but the opening stand that plundered 75 runs was broken due to the collective runout by Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul.
Jofra Archer played an unbeaten cameo, scoring 18-ball 21, lacing with three boundaries and one six.
Other batters including Joe Root (19), Harry Brook (0), Liam Livingstone (5), Brydon Carse (10), Adil Rashid (8), Saqib Mahmood failed to show any significant resistance with the bat.
For India, Ravindra Jadeja (3-26) and Harshit Rana (3-53) bagged three wickets apiece.
Mohammed Shami (1-38), Axar Patel (1-38) and Kuldeep Yadav (1-53) took a scalp each.
Hardik Pandya (0-37) remained wicketless.
Chasing a 249-run target, India lost both the openers, Yashasvi Jaiseal (15) and captain Rohit Sharma (2) for just 17 on the scorecard.
But it was the batting brilliance from both Shubman Gill (87) and Shreyas Iyer, who rose to occasion and rebounded the innings. The pair [Gill and Iyer] stitched 94-run partnership.
But Gill had even big one of 108 with Axar Patel to ensure India win the first ODI.
Jadeja, who had a great outing with the bowl, played the winning shot for his country off Mahmood inside the 39th, guiding his country to the crucial win with 68 balls remaining ahead of the highly anticipated Champions Trophy, slated to begin from February 19 (Wednesday).
Gill bagged the player of the match for playing an innings that helped the hosts to stage a comeback in the match following the openers’ jittery start.
However, the shortcomings of Rohit Sharma had continued with the bat, but maybe victory in the match will help revive his form ahead of the mega-event.
England will look to bounce back against India when the visitors take on the Rohit Sharma-led team in the second ODI on February 9 (Sunday).
