Sourav Ganguly wants an Indian bowler to be a consistent member of all three formats

Team India stamped their authority on the English side in the first T20I at Old Trafford as the visiting team won the game by 8 wickets, courtesy Kuldeep Yadav’s fifer and KL Rahul’s blistering second T20I century. Both the cricketers earned praises from cricketers around the world.

The former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly was highly impressed with the Chinaman’s performance in India’s successful T20I outing last night. He wants Kuldeep Yadav to be a part of all three formats and he went on to talk about Kuldeep’s ability of using faster balls as his advantage.

“He [Kuldeep] is a wicket-taker for India. He is India’s strength in this series — in T20 cricket, in one-day cricket and hopefully India will play him in the Tests as well,” Sourav Ganguly said during post-match analysis on Sony Six. “He is learning how to bowl in T20 cricket. He plays a lot of T20s, so he knows about not giving away boundaries in good overs. He is willing to let the batsman take a single and go to the other end.”

Match details

Winning the toss, Indian skipper Virat Kohli elected to bowl first. Jos Buttler dominated all the Indian bowlers right from the start. Kuldeep Yadav was the chief destructor as he picked five crucial wickets when England were dominating the game. He picked the scalps of Jos Buttler, Eoin Morgan, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow and Alex Hales. Eventually, England bundled out for 159/8 in 20 overs.

For the Indian team, the target of 160 is not a daunting task. Though, they lost Shikhar Dhawan early in the innings, Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul went on to dominate all English bowlers. KL Rahul registered his second T20I century equaling Rohit Sharma among Indian batsmen. India registered an 8-wicket win and took a lead of 1-0 in the three-match T20I series.