Chester-le-Street: In her first match as England skipper, wicketkeeper-batter Amy Jones was pleased by her team restricting the Harmanpreet Kaur-led India to a good score and then doing a brilliant job of playing straight on a skiddy Durham pitch.
Leg-spinner Sarah Glenn took career-best figures of 4/23 and opener Sophia Dunkley hit her highest T20I score of 61 not out as England beat India by nine wickets in the series opener. After Amy won the toss and asked India to bat, her bowlers, led from the front by Sarah, restricted the visitors to 132/7.
In chasing down 133, Sophia and Danni Wyatt (24) put on 60 for the opening wicket before young Alice Capsey continued her sparkling international form with a 20-ball 32 to see England home with seven overs to spare.
“I think (in the) first game of the series it’s important to start confidently and the girls did that, so it was brilliant to see. I think we thought we’d kept them to a good score and the pitch is a bit skiddy so we knew we had to go out there and play straight and the girls did that brilliantly,” said Jones after the match.
Amy was in awe of her top three batters, who did the job of chasing down the total on their own, and not leaving the task to the rest of England’s batting order. “I think it was fantastic to see them win so convincingly. Danni (Wyatt) at the start was great, and then obviously Dunks (Dunkley) and Capsey finishing it off like that so confidently is brilliant for us going forward.”
“It’s an unbelievable top three, isn’t it and the form they’re in is brilliant, if we get off to a good start we can keep coming at teams and it’s great sitting down watching them do the work.”
With a 1-0 lead in three-match series, Amy also thanked her team for making her international captaincy debut smooth with varied inputs. “I think I’m very quiet in all aspects of life to be honest. I think all the girls know it (captaincy) is not something that necessarily comes naturally to me and the girls all really stepped up which made it much easier.”
“Lots of girls chipped in with inputs. Just took in the information and tried to read the game.”
–IANS