Yuvraj Singh. -File photo by AP

KARACHI: Yuvraj Singh guided India to a five-wicket win over England in the first Twenty20 International match at Pune on Thursday.

Yuvraj took three wickets in four overs as India restricted England to 157 for six in 20 overs and was also the highest scoring batsman for the hosts with 38 runs as India cruised towards an easy target.

James James Tredwell and Stuart Meaker made their international T20 debuts as Eoin Morgan filled in for Stuart Broad who is ruled out with an injury as the tourists got off to a decent start with Alex Hales making 56 runs before being bowled by Yuvraj.

Luke Wright was caught out by Ajinkya Rahane off Yuvraj for 33 while Morgan met the same fate.

Samit Patel and Tim Bresnan were removed by Ashok Dinda and Michael Lumb was given out lbw to Ravi Ashwin.

In reply, Bresnan accounted for the wickets of both the openers while Kohli was bowled by Meaker. Suresh Raina was run out while Yuvraj was caught out by Meaker off Wright.

Dhoni scored the winning runs in the 18^th over with 13 balls left.  The Indian captain praised his side’s bowlers and said the team’s confidence was high after the win.

“The pressure was on the bowlers, Yuvraj was brilliant, I thought he bowled really well at the right time. I was a bit worried because they got off to a flying start but Ashwin bowled well in the first three overs,” Dhoni said.

“Every bowler apart from Yuvraj bowled one bad over but overall it was a good performance. In the shorter formats we have done quite well and it builds the confidence,” he added.

England captain Morgan said the tourists lacked discipline but had shown a lot of promise.

“We lacked some discipline with the batting, Alex Hales did well but we lacked about 15-20 runs. We never seemed to get going, we lost wickets. We didn’t get the early wickets but we always though we were in the game, and it’s tough defending that score.

“We’re a young side and we’ve shown a lot of promise, we’ll have to pick ourselves up.”