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The wicket arrived in the third over of the innings. Archer bowled a short-of-length delivery just outside the off stump. Vaibhav tried to pull it with proper force, but didn’t manage to get any full contact, and the ball went up, high into the sky towards mid-on. Sam Curran was there, settled under it, and took a clean, comfortable catch, without much of a fuss.

That was the second game in a row where Archer dismissed the young opener. Vaibhav’s first three international T20 scores now read 14, 13, and 15. The youngster looked pretty frustrated, walking back slowly to the pavilion after another chance to build something big slipped away.

Archer’s early wicket also gave England that ideal start with the new ball, and again it showed how he can bother batters with extra pace and bounce, almost every time.

By the end of three overs, India were 24 for 1 after electing to bat first. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was the lone batter dismissed, scoring 15 off 10 balls, including one four and one six, before being caught by Sam Curran off Jofra Archer. Abhishek Sharma stayed unbeaten on 7 from 7 balls, while wicketkeeper Ishan Kishan was not out on 1 from his first delivery. On top of that, India also picked up one extra, pushing the score to 24-1 at 8.00 run rate.

Jofra Archer bowled a sharp opening spell, giving away only 9 runs from his two overs while grabbing the crucial wicket of Vaibhav. Josh Tongue bowled the other over and conceded 15, but didn’t take a wicket.

India still had a lot of batting lined up, with Shreyas Iyer, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Prince Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, and Prasidh Krishna still to come. So even with that early setback, England’s breakthrough didn’t fully derail India, and they still had the depth to rebuild, and target a more competitive total in the fourth T20I.