Buttler's slogging trumps Kohli's excellence

Jos Buttler's brutal power has upstaged Virat Kohli's excellence as England secured an emphatic eight-wicket victory in the third Twenty20 against India.

Buttler counterpunched Kohli's unbeaten 77 with a career-best 83 not out off 52 balls and anchored England to 2-158 with 10 balls to spare.

England leads the series 2-1 with the final two matches scheduled for Thursday and Saturday.

After being put into bat, India rode on Kohli's late onslaught to reach 6-156. 

The Indian captain smashed his last 49 runs in style off 17 balls with five fours and four sixes, working the gaps at will.

The return of fit-again fast bowler Mark Wood (3-31) helped England make early inroads with India reduced to 24-3 inside the first six overs.

KL Rahul's miserable run continued in the series as Wood had him clean bowled for a duck. The opener has scored just one run in three games.

Rohit Sharma (15), playing his first game in the series after being rested, could have been out for 4 but Jofra Archer missed an easy return catch off his first ball.

Archer however took a fine catch at short fine leg after Rohit miscued a pull shot off Wood.

Buttler provided England a rollicking start by smashing 43 runs in the first six overs against both pace and the spin of Yuzvendra Chahal (1-41).

But Kohli was left to rue a pivotal drop when he but down Buttler after he played a reverse-sweep.

Kohli has dropped eight catches in men's T20Is since the start of 2019, the most recorded by any fielder from a Test-playing nation, in a stat tweeted by Opta.

"If you lose the toss, embrace what has been asked of you as a team. To be honest I think the England bowlers were absolutely brilliant with the new ball," Kohli said after the match.

"We definitely tried to come into the game as well as we could but I don't think our body language in the second half was acceptable in the field.

"Defending 160 you need a bit more intensity and energy and that was lacking tonight."

Buttler orchestrated England's win with two solid half century stands, adding 57 runs with Dawid Malan (18) and then featuring in an unbroken 77-run partnership with Jonny Bairstow, who remained unbeaten on 40.

Buttler used his feet well against the spinners and also dominated India's fast bowlers with his drives, hitting five fours and four sixes, including a couple of monster bombs off Chahal.

"Sometimes people don't expect me to attack the spinners so I thought I would like to try to take it on," said Buttler.

"Chahal is a fantastic bowler and I have had some good battles against him but it was nice to chance my arm a bit today."

He singled out his first six off Chahal as "the one that got me up and running and gave me confidence to take the game on even more".

The Board of Control for Cricket in India decided to organise the remaining three T20s without crowds in Ahmedabad due to rising coronavirus cases in Gujrat.

More than half of the 130,000-capacity stadium was filled with spectators in the first two matches. 

But the world's largest cricket stadium will also be without spectators for the remaining two games.