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England bulldoze India 4-0 with dominant series win
Twin match-winners
Buttler and Brook led from the front with big scores. Their batting took the game away from India in key matches. England were too strong across the series. They won all 4 games to complete a whitewash. The 4-0 result shows England’s depth in batting and firepower. Buttler’s experience + Brook’s attacking flair made it a one-sided contest.
Delayed start
India’s 6-mile trip from their Southampton hotel to the ground took 90 minutes due to heavy traffic. The toss was delayed by 45 minutes. Shreyas Iyer won it and chose to bowl — that’s 7 tosses won but still no wins as India captain.
Buttler had gone 18 T20I innings without reaching 40. He ended that drought in style: 100 off 51 balls First 50: 34 balls | Next 50: 17 balls Hit the ton by smashing Axar Patel over square leg, then pointed to the dressing room and to the skyIt was a throwback to his 2018-22 peak. England started fast and got faster. The result was their 3rd-highest T20I score ever.
Brook's ball-striking was even more outrageous. He reached 50 in 19 balls, his fastest in T20Is, and his hitting over the off side was incredibly pure: five of his eight sixes flew over deep extra cover and long-off. From 85 off 35 balls after 16 overs, the only surprise was that he failed to reach three figures, as India's seamers finally found the blockhole.
India fell behind the required rate immediately and never caught up with it. Ishan Kishan made 56 but could not get beyond fourth gear, and Tilak Varma's bright 53 was too little, too late as Sam Curran closed a clinical win out. India's most productive over, the 18th, brought 16 runs, after England had shown their ruthlessness with five overs of 20-plus.
From No. 5 to No. 3It’s hard to believe Brook was batting as low as No. 5 as recently as mid-February. He credited Brendon McCullum for promoting him to No. 3 during the T20 World Cup. The numbers since the moveIn 7 innings at No. 3, Brook has: Average: 72.4 Strike rate: 192.55He’s the one who’s made the promotion work.
Brook played with relentless attacking intent after Phil Salt's early dismissal; when he charged at his first ball, India burned a review on an optimistic caught-behind appeal. He had a life of sorts off his fourth ball, as a back-tracking Dube made a total hash of a high chance at short third, then belted Prince's next two balls over the square-leg boundary for six.
It was always a long shot. Sanju Samson, recalled after Vaibhav Sooryavanshi's false start in international cricket, cracked two early sixes but chipped to cover-point; Kishan holed out to give Adil Rashid a wicket in his 150th T20I; and Varma edged behind the ball after reaching 50. It meant that, for the first time in a T20I series of four or more games, India ended winless.
England 257 for 3 (Buttler 131, Brook 95*) beat India 201 for 8 (Kishan 56, Tilak 53, Curran 3-36) by 56 runs