England beat Australia by two runs in the first T20I match at the Rose Bowl Ground on Friday to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match T20I series.
Earlier, the visitors had won the toss and elected to bowl first as the England openers Jos Buttler and Jonny Bairstow took the crease. Buttler scored 44 runs while Bairstow fell cheaply for 8 runs off 7 balls during England’s innings.
From there, David Malan started taking over as he managed to rotate the strike to keep the scorecard clocking. His confidence seemed high as he kept pushing himself to play safe yet aggressive shots to score runs off weak deliveries. He blasted five boundaries and three sixes in his innings of 66 runs and helped the side reach the total of 162/7 after 20 overs.
Australian openers David Warner and Aaron Finch gave a solid start to the visitors building a 98 run partnership together. Skipper Aaron Finch also reached his 2000 runs in T20I cricket and he went on to score 46 runs of 32 balls including 7 boundaries and one six.
On the other hand, Warner put up 58 runs off 47 balls as he thwacked the England bowlers in all the directions of the ground. However, the home-side refused to give up as the bowlers showed some grit during the death overs and didn’t leak many runs.
Pacer Jofra Archer and spinner Adil Rashid finished with a couple of wickets each while Mark Wood looked ferocious due to his variations and bouncers.
Australia needed 39 runs off the last six overs but the hosts continued to fight by not conceding runs in the final six overs. Skipper Eoin Morgan rotated his bowlers to keep the Australian batsman at the bay as if it was the penultimate game.
Subsequently, Australia required 15 runs off the final over by Tom Curran. They managed to score only 12 runs and therefore, lost by two runs in the end.
England’s golden run continued as they won the first match of the series against the mighty Australian team. David Malan was adjudged the Man of the Match for his innings of 66 runs, and also the highest score among both the sides.
The next match of the series will take place on September 6 at the same venue i.e., Rose Bowl Ground.
