Guwahati: India suffered a crushing 41-run loss to England in the first T20 of the three-match series here Sunday with Smriti Mandhana making a forgettable captaincy debut.
India struggled to 119 for six after Tammy Beaumont (62 off 57) and skipper Heather Knight (40 off 20) steered England to 160 for four in 20 overs. The loss, India’s fifth in a row in the shortest format, showed the W V Raman-coached side has a lot of work to do before the T20 World Cup in Australia early next year.
India lost all their T20s in New Zealand after winning the ODI series and things are heading in a similar direction against England with two more games to go. Ahead of the second T20 Thursday, the momentum is with the visitors who also won the third and final ODI. Mandhana, who became India’s youngest T20 captain at 22, said India’s bowling should have been tighter in the death overs.
“We gave away 10-15 extra runs at the end. Didn’t have a great start with the bat as well. Really happy with the way Arundhati Reddy, Shikha Pandey and Deepti Sharma batted at the end. “That’s a positive for us. Don’t think anyone has gone back and seen the statistics. Every day we come out looking to win the match not thinking about what’s happened in the past,” said Mandhana at the post-match presentation.