India beat England in the first T20I encounter© AFP
England cricket team fast bowler Jofra Archer said that Indian batters were lucky as his team slumped to a huge loss in the first T20I encounter in Kolkata on Wednesday. Archer picked up 2 wickets for England but Indian batters reigned supreme with opener Abhishek Sharma hitting 8 sixes in his innings. Chasing a mere 132, India made short work of the match and won the encounter with 43 balls to go. Archer said that the Indian batters were ‘extremely lucky’ as a number of balls were miscued high up in the air but they ended up dropping in no-man’s land.
“I guess the conditions just favoured me a little bit more than the other bowlers. The other bowlers bowled well, but the batters were extremely lucky. A few balls, well a lot of balls, went up in the air but didn’t go to hand and probably next game they all go to hand and they’re 40 for six,” said Archer.
Archer further advised the batters to keep their heads up despite losing the match as such results can happen in India when the team adopts an aggressive tactic.
“It’s just important to keep the head up, this happens a lot in India, especially in the IPL. The batters go hard, the bowlers go hard and we were just on the unlucky side of it.”
“Yeah, you’ve always got to try in the beginning, because if you get them three or four down in the power play then usually teams bat differently in the middle.”
“The only way you’re going to know is if you try. We gave it a try, it didn’t work, so we will try again next game,” said Archer.
England captain Jos Buttler attributed the crushing seven-wicket defeat against India in the first T20 International here to his batters’ inability to “impose the game” when faced with quality spin bowling.
Coach Brendon McCullum began his new innings with a defeat against India after England collapsed against the spin trio of Varun Chakravarthy, Axar Patel and Ravi Bishnoi to fold for 132.
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