After suffering a catastrophic defeat in the T20I series, India made a stunning comeback, beating England by six-wickets in the first ODI on Tuesday in Birmingham to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series. India were on a six-match losing streak – a 2-0 loss to Ireland and a 4-0 loss to England in the T20I series – but they finally managed to secure their first win of the tour.

Chasing a target of 259, the visitors lost stalwarts Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli cheaply; however, a classy knock of 80 runs from Shubman Gill put India back in the game. Gill, meanwhile, retired hurt following a hamstring setback, but half-centuries from Axar Patel (57) and Washington Sundar (52) guided India over the line. Impressed by India's spirited performance, skipper Shubman Gill lauded the team's magnificent performance. 

"Definitely, when you see your middle-order lower-middle-order score runs like that and finish off the job for the team, you get a lot of confidence as a captain and as a top-order batter," Gill said at the post-match presentation.

Gill also underlined that the management will try different combinations over the course of the series in order to find depth in batting and bowling departments ahead of the World Cup.

“Yes, we will try different combinations to see which kind of combination gives us best depth in bowling and batting, in both the departments. I think the wicket that we played on, the conditions would be a bit similar to South Africa.”

"It was not easy for the batsmen with the new ball. The ball was doing a bit; the ball was kicking off. It wasn't as easy to score runs with the new ball. But the wicket settled in nicely, and I think the conditions are going to play similar in South Africa as well. So if we can test different combinations on these kind of wickets, it would be great for us," he said.

After winning the toss, England put India to bowl, and surprisingly Gill also wanted to bowl first. 

"Honestly, it was more about our combination. We have a youngish bowling attack, so our batting is still a bit more experienced than our bowling. So, first game of the series, we wanted to bowl first so that even if there's a target of 320, we back the kind of batting order that we have, we back ourselves to chase that."

“I think how we bowled in the middle overs was very pleasing. I think they were 50-odd in the 10 overs. We bowled brilliantly well in the first 6-7 overs. The ball was doing a bit and we bowled the right areas. And then they got a bit away in the end of the powerplay. We were put under pressure. But I think how we bounced back, how we came back and took those five wickets was very important,” he added.