Archer stars on injury return as top-ranked England thump world number two India in T20 clash

Jofra Archer led the attack in style on his return from injury and Jason Roy hit form as England hammered India by eight wickets in the Twenty20 series opener in Ahmedabad.

After three big defeats in a row saw Joe Root’s Test side well beaten in the recent series, Eoin Morgan exacted a dose of revenge as his worldleading white-ball side sealed victory with 27 balls left.

The stage was set in the first innings as England restricted the hosts, ranked number two in the world, to 124-7, with Archer taking 3-23.

That was never likely to be enough to worry a stacked England line-up, even on a tricky surface, and Roy's bullish 49 at the top of the order left no doubt. Jonny Bairstow and Dawid Malan finished things off with a handful of sixes, including the latter’s winning blow over the top.

Archer kicked off with a wicket maiden, seeing off the world's number three batsman, KL Rahul, who dragged down his own stumps with just a single to his name.

Captain Virat Kohli was next up and soon gone, for a fiveball duck, Adil Rashid drawing him into an unusually inelegant hack to mid-off.

England turned a good powerplay into a brilliant one when Mark Wood joined the attack, taking out Shikhar Dhawan’s leg stump at 92mph.

Pant (21) flicked Ben Stokes straight to Bairstow to make it 48-4 at halfway and India would have been down and out without Shreyas Iyer’s 67.

Archer reasserted himself with two wickets in two balls, Hardik Pandya chipping to mid-off, before Shardul Thakur pulled a lively bumper straight to long-leg. Chris Jordan closed out the innings, taking Iyer courtesy of a fine catch from Malan.

India needed Axar Patel to reprise the habit of quick breakthroughs, but England’s openers, Jos Buttler and Roy, had other ideas and by the end of the powerplay, the pair had wiped 50 from the target.

Chahal's leg-spin pinned Buttler in front for 28 and Roy went for 49, lbw to Washington Sundar, before Bairstow exchanged some heated words with Sundar when the bowler accused him of obstruction – his primary sin being taking a blow to the helmet at the non-striker's end.

Bairstow finished with 26 not out, passing to Malan (24 not out) to end things with a big hit off Sundar.