Few souls on this green planet would have forecasted the state of the Indian team and their fans after USA skipper Monank Patel won the toss and elected to bowl first in both teams’ first match at the ICC T20 World Cup 2026.
While Pakistan avoided a significant upset in the tournament’s opening match on Saturday morning against the Netherlands in Colombo, India were put under the pump by the USA in the evening at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
Former South African pacer Dale Steyn had tweeted, “300 loading..” when India began their innings. But less than an hour later, he accepted that his prediction – and those of the Star Sports commentators who had declared a ‘300 alert’ for this match specifically with India’s powerhouse batting lineup in mind – had gone awry as India lost six wickets for only 77 runs while in the 13th over.
This was certainly not the typical Wankhede surface, on which Abhishek Sharma blasted a century last year against England. Tonight, the ball stuck and gripped into what was a tacky pitch.
What this meant was some Indian batters, like Shivam Dube, were taken by surprise by some uneven bounce, and some others, like Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, and Hardik Pandya, couldn’t time their big shots well enough; all of India’s first six wickets were caught, which is a testament to the tackiness on the pitch and also a tribute to USA’s excellent bowling planning and fielding.
India lost Abhishek in the first over for a duck, caught at deep cover, an unusual position to place a fielder in the powerplay. But a 37 (24) second-wicket stand between Ishan Kishan and Tilak Varma meant India had a launching pad.
However, Shadley van Schalkwyk bowled an unbelievable over that included three wickets to close out the powerplay at 46/4.
A mini partnership of 26(34) brewed between Suryakumar Yadav and Rinku Singh as India now reassessed the conditions and their game plan, setting themselves up for a big finish.
However, USA struck twice to remove Rinku and Hardik in a space of seven balls to leave the hosts reeling at 77/6, leaving the last batting pair of Suryakumar and Axar at the crease with seven overs left.
India’s disarrayed batting show against the USA was shocking to everyone watching. Fans on Twitter came up with funny memes and tweets as India stumbled in their opening match of the ICC T20 World Cup 2026.
IND vs USA: Top 10 Memes On Twitter As India Collapsed Against USA In T20 World Cup Opener
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