India opener Sanju Samson departed cheaply after Tom Banton pulled off a sharp catch during the opening T20I of the five-match series against England. The contest is being played on Wednesday, July 1, at the Riverside Ground in Chester-le-Street.
The dismissal came off the fourth ball of the second over of India’s innings. Saqib Mahmood delivered a length ball outside off, and Samson skewed it aerially with the open face of the bat. The ball flew to the right of Banton at backward point, where he completed a fine two-handed catch.
Watch the video of the dismissal below:
The opener endured a disappointing outing, managing just one run off seven balls. Samson’s dismissal left the visitors at 6/1 after 1.4 overs.
With this failure, the 31-year-old has now managed just six runs across his last three T20I innings.
Abhishek Sharma counterattacks after Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan fall early
Opting to bat first, the Men in Blue got off to a poor start, losing opener Sanju Samson for just one run off the fourth ball of the second over. On the final delivery of the same over, No. 1-ranked T20I batter Ishan Kishan was run out for a two-ball duck.
However, Abhishek Sharma launched a counterattack in the fourth over, taking on Saqib Mahmood with a four and two sixes. In the process, he brought up 100 sixes in T20Is. At the time of writing, India were 36/2 after four overs, with Abhishek unbeaten on 29 off 11 balls and skipper Shreyas Iyer batting on five off four.
Playing XIs of both sides:
India: Sanju Samson (wicketkeeper), Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer (captain), Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Harshit Rana, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy
England: Philip Salt, Jos Buttler (wicketkeeper), Harry Brook (captain), Jacob Bethell, Tom Banton, Sam Curran, Will Jacks, Liam Dawson, Saqib Mahmood, Adil Rashid, Luke Wood
Edited by Dev Sharma
