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Hales finished on 86 not out from 47 balls, and Buttler, who was unbeaten on a 49-ball 80, completed the statement win in style, blasting paceman Mohammed Shami over his head for six.

Put into bat after Buttler won the toss, Rohit Sharma’s India started slowly under tight English bowling, and it was left to Hardik Pandya (63) and Virat Kohli (50) to mount a rescue, pushing them to 168 for six.

The total seemed a tad below par and soon looked piffling as Hales and Buttler went to work, the pair blasting 23 boundaries between them.

Their 170-run stand was the biggest opening partnership in T20 World Cup history and England’s biggest for any wicket at the tournament.

For player-of-the-match Hales, it was a night of redemption, having missed out on England’s 2019 triumph after a recreational drug scandal.

His exile from the England setup lasted more than three years and he was only called up to the squad after Jonny Bairstow was injured in a freak golf accident.

England had to make changes for the semi-final, with pace spearhead Mark Wood and number three batsman Dawid Malan out injured.

Replacement seamer Chris Jordan took 3-43, capturing the key wicket of Kohli, while spinner Adil Rashid took a miserly 1-20 from his four overs.

Virat Kohli made his fourth half-century of the tournament and put on a 61-run fourth-wicket stand with Pandya, who tore into the opposition attack in the final overs, taking 57 off the final three overs, including 20 off one from Sam Curran.

But it proved too little, too late, after a sluggish start with the bat.

Kohli passed 4,000 T20 international runs with a boundary off Liam Livingstone that took India’s total to 100-3 after 15 overs.