IND vs ENG: Here’s why England players were wearing black armbands in the first T20I

England players on Friday (March 12) wore black armbands in the opening T20I against India at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad. The visitors were sporting the armbands in memory of former England pacer Joey Benjamin who recently passed away. Benjamin, who also played for Surrey, died earlier this week at the age of 60 of a heart attack.

Benjamin was born in St Kitts in 1961 before moving to England with his family at the age of 15. The fast bowler started his career with Birmingham League cricket and made a name for himself while playing for Staffordshire. He had to wait until the age of 27 to earn his first county contract from Warwickshire. He, however, struggled to play regularly for the team due to the presence of bowlers like Gladstone Small, Tim Munton and Allan Donald.

Benjamin managed to play just 25 first-class games in four years for Warwickshire before relocating to Surrey in 1992. Overall, he picked up 387 wickets in first-class cricket. He represented England in just one Test which came against South Africa at the Oval in 1994.

England draw first blood

Talking about the first T20I, England started the proceedings on a solid note. After Eoin Morgan won the toss and decided to bowl first, his bowlers totally justified the decision by blowing away India’s top-order. Jofra Archer dismissed KL Rahul for just 1 before Adil Rashid sent back India skipper Virat Kohli for a 5-ball duck.

And even before India could recover from those early setbacks, Mark Wood dismissed Shikhar Dhawan to reduce India to 20 for 3. Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer stopped the rot for a while but could not bail India out of trouble as Ben Stokes ended their stand. India could only manage 124 runs on the board, which the visitors chased down without breaking a sweat.