CRICKET REPORT | July 2, 2026 | Sports & Cricket
There is a long and painful tradition of Indian cricket tours of England being disrupted by English weather. Add the first T20 International of 2026 to that tradition. The first game of the five-match England vs India T20 2026 series ended in no result after rain played spoilsport at the Riverside Ground in Chester-le-Street in Durham on Wednesday. India posted 189/7, England never batted, and the match was abandoned — along with Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s much-anticipated debut, which the selectors chose not to give him in Durham anyway, leaving the teenager to watch from the pavilion as rain ended any possibility of a result.
Upon winning the toss and opting to bat first, India racked up 189 for 7 courtesy of a glitzy 59 off 24 balls from Abhishek Sharma, accompanied by a top score of 68 from visiting skipper Shreyas Iyer. Saqib Mahmood, on his England comeback, finished with 3 for 33.
Abhishek Sharma’s 59 off 24 deliveries was the kind of powerplay innings that changes the entire character of a T20 match. He arrived at the crease with India in trouble — Mahmood’s first international wicket in over a year, bowling in the second over, heaped yet more misery on Sanju Samson, whose last three scores for India now read 5, 0, 1. He was caught brilliantly by Tom Banton at backward point. At the end of the same over, Ishan Kishan was run out — for the second innings in succession — and India were reeling at 6 for 2.
From 6 for 2 to 88 for 3 at the end of the powerplay — that is the Abhishek Sharma effect. His half-century came in 20 balls. He was brutal on Mahmood, who had begun so well, carting him for three boundaries in a row. Abhishek Sharma’s brutal 59 off 24 deliveries made up for lost time in the powerplay, eventually departing with India a much healthier 88 for the loss.
Shreyas Iyer then played the captain’s innings his team needed in the middle overs. Captain Shreyas Iyer leads from the front, reaching a composed fifty off 38 balls to hold the innings firmly together. India moved to 135/4 with five overs in hand, nicely placed for a strong finish. Iyer’s 68 off 47 — measured, authoritative, exactly what a new captain should produce in his first match — kept India’s momentum alive through the middle overs when Abhishek’s explosive platform could easily have been squandered by a collapse. Shivam Dube provided the late impetus with an unbeaten 42 off 21 balls, striking two fours and three sixes as India added valuable runs in the closing overs.
189 for 7 looked like a solid, competitive total for the Riverside Ground, with its notoriously green pitch and overhead conditions that assist swing bowling. Under lights, with the ball moving, it could easily have been a winning score. The rain made that question academic.
The match within the match — the one all of India was actually watching — was the Sooryavanshi selection decision. All the talk before the game has been about the 15-year-old batting sensation, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, who could become India’s youngest-ever international debutant if he is named in the playing XI. He was not. The selectors held him back, choosing the tried-and-tested opening combination of Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson. Given that Samson scored 1 — his third consecutive single-digit score — and that the rain washed out any chance of a result anyway, the decision to delay Sooryavanshi’s debut to Old Trafford on Saturday looks, in hindsight, both defensible and unfortunate.
Teenage prodigy Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s much-anticipated India debut continued as he was not picked in the playing XI. The second England vs India T20 match was held at Old Trafford, Manchester on Saturday. And at Old Trafford, as covered separately, the debut finally came — 10 balls, 14 runs, two sixes, and a stumping that will be analysed until the next match gives everyone something new to discuss.
Durham’s rain was not just an inconvenience. It was also, in its own damp English way, a statement about the difference between the IPL’s glitzy Mumbai and Chennai evenings and the grey reality of an English summer — the kind of conditions that have made or broken touring Indian teams for a century, and that Shreyas Iyer’s new-look squad must learn to navigate across five matches if they are to win a T20 series in England for the first time.
All match data sourced from ESPNcricinfo, Yahoo Sports, and Olympics.com as of July 1–2, 2026.
