Here's why England players are wearing black armbands during first T20I against India

England players, on Friday, 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 player Joey Benjamin who recently passed away. The former England and Surrey pacer passed away earlier this week at the age of 60 after suffering a heart attack.

Benjamin was born in St Kitts in 1961 before moving to England with his family at the age of 15. He 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.

He 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 off to a solid start:

Talking about the game, England have 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 by dismissing the former for 21. At the time of compiling this report, the hosts were reeling at 92 for 4 in the 16th over.

England are looking to get back to winning ways after being thrashed in the Test series. The visitors had started the Test series on a stunning note by winning the opener by 227 runs. However, they failed to capitalize on the lead as India thrashed them in the next three Tests to seal the series.