ICC T20 World Cup 2026: Suryakumar Yadav, Mohammed Siraj star in India's comfortable win against USA

Suryakumar Yadav played a captain's knock, while Mohammed Siraj picked up three wickets on T20I comeback as India registered a convincing win by 29 runs against the USA in their first T20 World Cup 2026 match at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.

Asked to bat first, India got off to a horror start, losing four wickets within the powerplay, including Shadley van Schalkwyk's three in the sixth over. The pacer accounted outfoxed a dangerous looking Ishan Kishan before accounting for Tilak Varma and Shivam Dube in successive deliveries.

The hosts found themselves in deeper trouble as Rinku Singh and Hardik Pandya departed in successive overs.

At 77/6, India were in deep trouble before losing another wicket at 114 in the form of Axar Patel.

Suryakumar Yadav, meanwhile, led a lone battle as he reached a hard fought half-century. He then teed off in the final few overs to give India a defendable total and remained not out on 84 off just 49 balls. His knock included 10 fours and four sixes, including 21 runs in the final over bowled by Saurabh Netravalkar.

van Schalkwyk bowled a splendid spell of 4/25, while spinner Harmeet Singh picked up two wickets.

With the ball, Mohammed Siraj struck twice with the new ball to peg USA on the backfoot. Arshdeep Singh, to0, struck early to reduce the oppenents to 13/3 within four overs.

Once the spinners took over, runs became harder to score with Varun Chakravarthy and Axar Patel bowled with discipline, even as Milind Kumar and Sanjay Krishnamurthy sought to rebuild the innings.

However, Kumar fell in an attempt to up the scoring rate in what seemed like a brain fade moment. Kumar missed a googly from Chakravarthy and set off for a run with the ball in Ishan Kishan's hands. The wicketkeeper did not miss the stumping opportunity.

Wickets fell at regular intervals as Axar Patel struck twice in two balls in the 16th over. It was Siraj's seering yorker of the last ball that sealed the match for India.

India next face the Namibia in Delhi on February 12, while USA travel to Colombo to play against Pakistan.