ENG vs IND: Rohit Sharma scripts history, becomes first captain to win 13 successive T20Is

Rohit Sharma returned to the 22-yard cricket strip for Team India when the Men in Blue played the first T20I, of the three-match series, versus hosts England on Thursday (July 07) in Southampton. Hitman's presence worked wonders for a second-stringed Indian team, who defeated Jos Buttler & Co. by 50 runs to take a 1-0 lead.

With this win, Indian captain Rohit also scripted history by becoming the first-ever skipper to record 13 successive wins in the shortest format of the game. BCCI's official Twitter handle shared a post for the 35-year-old Rohit following his massive feat:

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Rohit has not yet lost a single T20I ever since he became the full-time captain after Virat Kohli's resignation following the 2021 T20 World Cup. Since then, India have been on a winning spree under Rohit, beating the likes of New Zealand, West Indies, and Sri Lanka at home before the 1st T20I victory over England, at the Rose Bowl, Southampton.

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Talking about the series opener, played on Thursday, India opted to bat first and rode on quickfire knocks from Deepak Hooda (33), Suryakumar Yadav (39) and Hardik Pandya's 51 to post 198-8. In reply, Hardik starred with the bat to return with 4 for 33 whereas Yuzvendra Chahal and Arshdeep Singh accounted for two scalps each to dismiss England for 148 in 19.3 overs.

At the post-match presentation, Rohit said, "Great performance from ball one. All batters showed intent. Although the pitch was good, we played good shots and never got ahead of the game. You got to make use of those six overs in the powerplay. There is a certain approach we want to take in the powerplay. You got to back yourself in this game, sometimes it comes off, sometimes it doesn't. The whole batting unit needs to understand the direction the team is taking and the guys were spot on today. I was impressed with his (Hardik) bowling. He wants to do that a lot more in the future, bowled quick and used his variations too. Of course his batting is there for us to see. That's the reason we wanted to bat (ball swinging under lights). Sometimes it does swing in the evenings and we wanted to utilize that. Both the new ball bowlers used the swing and stopped their batters. We were sloppy on the field. Those catches should have been taken. Pretty sure we will field pretty well in the coming games."