Stunning fifties from Kishan and Kohli help India level T20I series

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Ishan Kishan, on debut, excelled with the bat and found the support of captain Virat Kohli to guide India to victory by seven wickets on Sunday.

Kohli spurred India to a comfortable victory with his unbeaten knock of 73 from 49 deliveries, and became the first player to reach 3000 runs in men's T20Is.

England, asked to bat first, put up a decent score but it wasn't enough to trouble the hosts as the Indian bowlers restricted them to 164/6.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar (1/28) struck in the first over as he dismissed Jos Butler for a duck with a brilliant in-swinger. England quickly recovered from the early hiccup courtesy of Jason Roy and Dawid Malan. The pair put on a 63-run stand before Yuzvendra Chahal (1/34) produced the breakthrough, trapping Malan in front for 24.

Roy then fell short of a half-century for the second time in two matches, miscuing Washington Sundar (2/29) to Bhuvneshwar at deep square leg for 46. Things got better for India as Suryakumar Yadav made amends for an earlier drop by taking a fumbling catch off Sundar’s bowling to remove Jonny Bairstow (20).

Eoin Morgan (28) and Ben Stokes (24) looked to rebuild England’s innings with fast starts. Both helped the side with much-needed twenties but both lost their wickets to Shardul Thakur (2/29).

In the chase, India started their innings in a similar fashion to England’s as KL Rahul (0) nicked behind to Buttler, gifting Sam Curran (1/22) a wicket-maiden for the first over of the innings.

Kohli joined debutant Kishan at the crease as the duo looked to rebuild the Indian innings. Kishan in particular dominated the England bowlers, showing no sign of nerves on his debut.

He was well supported by Kohli at the other end as the pair accelerated India's innings. Kishan brought up his maiden half-century in style by thrashing Adil Rashid(1/38) for back-to-back sixes. The 94-run stand was brought to an end when Kishan was trapped lbw for 56, attempting to reverse sweep Rashid.

Rishabh Pant accompanied Kohli at the crease and pushed India to the brink of victory with a quickfire knock of 26 runs off 13 balls before falling to Chris Jordan.

The third T20I will be played on Tuesday, 16 March.