Virat Kohli bags third duck in five innings as England smash India in opening T20
Virat Kohli's horror run of form has continued as India was stunned in the opening T20 against England, losing by eight wickets in Ahmedabad.
Inserted in to bat by his counterpart, Kohli's side limped to a below-par score of 7-124 in its 20 overs, with the Indian skipper registering his third duck in his last five international innings.
England paceman Jofra Archer removed KL Rahul in his first over, before finishing off with figures of 3-23 as India fell to 3-20 in the first five overs and couldn’t recover.
Shreyas Iyer hit a fighting 67 off 48 balls in an otherwise below-par batting effort by India, for whom star opener Rohit Sharma is being rested for the first two games.
Virat Kohli was dismissed after being caught at mid off following an attempted slog off Adil Rashid Getty
After suggesting that India's top order needed to be more aggressive heading into the series, Kohli attempted a number of uncharacteristic slogs during his bizarre five-ball innings, leaving veteran commentator Harsha Bhogle puzzled.
"It's a long time since I've seen Virat Kohli play a shot like that early in his innings," Bhogle said after an attempted Kohli slog off Archer.
"This is not an innings you see too often."
Following the loss, Kohli admitted that his side had adopted the wrong approach to batting on what was a difficult pitch.
Kohli congratulates England's T20 skipper Eoin Morgan after the tourists claimed the first match Getty
"We looked to try a few things, but having said that you have to accept the conditions," he said.
"If the pitch allows you to, you can be aggressive from ball one. We didn't spend enough time assessing, Shreyas did, but we had lost too many wickets to get to 150-160."
Another Kohli failure means India's captain has now gone without an international century for a remarkable 477 days, and his form slump even led to remarkable calls for him to be dropped from the T20 side.
However, others urged fans not to overreact to a rare form slump from one of the world's best batsmen.
In response, Jason Roy and Jos Buttler opened with 72 and England finished on 2-130, reaching the required target with a whopping 27 balls to spare.
Roy and Buttler raised 50 runs in the first six overs. Roy was out for 49, trapped leg before wicket by Washington Sundar, and Buttler made 28.
Jonny Bairstow was unbeaten on 26 and Dawid Malan on 24 after clubbing a winning six off Sundar.
