Sudden impact: Yorkshire's Joe Root returns to help guide England to T20 victory over India
The 26-year-old missed the last one-day international with a back injury but returned for the first T20 in Kanpur to hit an unbeaten 46 in his side’s seven-wicket success.
India laboured to a below-par 147-8, a mark England surpassed with 11 balls to spare as captain Eoin Morgan (51) and Root did the bulk of the work.
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Hide AdBut the win was earned in the field, Moeen Ali producing a career-best spell of two for 21 in four constrictive overs while Tymal Mills and Chris Jordan, topping and tailing the innings, turned in matching figures of 4-0-27-1.
In all, England scored seven sixes to the home side’s one, as telling a statistic as any in the current climate.
Having lost 4-0 in the Test series and 2-1 in the one-day internationals, this is the first time England have been ahead in any format during a trying tour and one win from the next two will see them leave on an unexpected high.
“It was a great game,” said Root afterwards. “It was a shame to miss the last one-dayer so it was nice to come back in and make an impact as well. I thought the guys were brilliant tonight, bowling upfront and taking wickets and putting them under pressure and making it difficult for them to build partnerships.
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Hide Ad“With the bat, we knew it would take just one big partnership and not necessarily the prettiest but we got the job done and got off to a great start to the series now.
“I do think the pitch played better second time round under the lights. It skidded on a little bit and a bit of an invariable bounce so yeah, thought it was a good win of the toss in the end.
“It wasn’t my most fluid knock but we knew what we had to do out there and thought Morgs played extremely well and took a lot of pressure off me at the other end.
Speaking on the start made by Roy and Billings, the Yorkshireman added: “It’s great to see them come in and play with confidence. Jason is coming in off the back of a really good one-day series and Sam, coming in at the top of the order and him to play like that first up, and I hope he will gain a lot of confidence going into the rest of the series.”