Having gone three years, 16 successive bilaterals and two T20 World Cups without losing, India has now lost two consecutive series in a space of two weeks.
Needing a win at Bristol to keep the series alive, India once again faltered, appearing to be a bunch that fails to learn from its past mistakes and still unable to get a hang of the local conditions, as England clinched the series 3-0 with an 8-wicket win on Friday. Having been blanked by Ireland 2-0 a fortnight ago, India are facing the embarrassment of being whitewashed for the first time in a T20 series if they happen to lose in Southampton on Sunday.
This was yet another outing in the tour where the batting department spectacularly failed, putting on a mere 158/7, which was overhauled by England with nine wickets in hand and 6.1 overs untouched. Shreyas Iyer’s start of an era as T20I captain continues to remain winless as head coach Gautam Gambhir watched it all unravel from the dugout with a grim face.
As he mentioned at the end of the previous outing, India might be missing key players. There are no two ways about it, but this result comes down to players still not getting used to the conditions thrown at them in United Kingdom despite spending two weeks out there.
The root cause was their failure to course correct from mistakes they have been making regularly this series, so much that it has become a bad habit that they are struggling to let go of. Pitches that have a bit of spongy bounce have made it hard for Indian batsmen to get control of the short deliveries. In India, these are batsmen who routinely take on short balls admirably well even if they don’t get behind the line. Making room on either side allows them to hit them long. When they are cramped for room, even in the IPL they have struggled at times.
Here in England, there is a slight tweak that batsmen tend to make. Take former captain Rohit Sharma, a wonderful executioner of pull and hook for example. He tended to get behind the line more often than not. It was part of getting acclimatised to the conditions and tweaking the game as per needs.
Instead, right through this tour, none of the Indian batsmen have shown the willingness to adapt their game. In simple terms, they have walked into a trap that England didn’t even set deliberately for them. So having seen them struggle with short deliveries, Jofra Archer and Josh Tongue simply continued with it.
For the third time in a row Vaibhav Sooryavanshi only showed flashes before being undone by Archer’s short delivery again. Ishan Kishan fell in the same fashion to Tongue as India stumbled even before they could find their feet. The county ground in Bristol is small, with the boundaries being short particularly down the ground. But as has been the case through the tour, India’s new age batsmen are still a long way from figuring that straight pockets are the easy ones to pick on. Instead, the cross-batted swipes do more harm than good as Abhishek Sharma and Tilak Varma found out.
Keeping the inning glued together was captain Shreyas Iyer, whose knock of 80 in 49 was exceptional. Among all the batsmen, he has solely looked a class apart on this trip and on Thursday played like a skipper who was desperate to get off the mark. There was assuredness in Iyer’s approach, where despite losing partners regularly, he kept India in the game with a wonderfully paced innings. When he wanted to go aerial, he chose to go in the V and only a short-delivery off Adil Rashid made him pull behind square, while an improvised upper cut showed his intent early on.
If not for his unbeaten 80, India’s innings would have been non-existent like the one in Nottingham where they folded for 76 to lose by 125. Beyond Shreyas, the next highest score was Shivam Dube’s 22, the only other score to cross 20.
Iyer is a captain who is missing several key links, but none more than Hardik Pandya. In his absence, the finisher’s slot is so empty that in the last two overs India didn’t find a single boundary with Washington Sundar and Axar Patel showing they are seldom useful down the order. It is a position where teams have batsmen with creative intent, who can exhibit the ramps and scoops when the pacers hit the yorker lengths. Sam Curran and Archer didn’t have to worry about any of it as they kept it simple and shut India to 158/7, which was way short of the par total.
If the 125-run drubbing, the worst by margin of runs for India, wasn’t enough in Nottingham, here their attack showed no bite whatsoever. Never before have England chased a target of 150 or above with as many deliveries remaining.
Harshit Rana and Varun Chakaravarthy missed the game with hamstring injuries, which reflected poorly on the medical team as both returned to the team on the back of clearing fitness tests after supposed recoveries from injuries. As a result, Indian bowling lacked any fear factor. And after Jos Buttler was out for 8, captain Harry Brook led the charge with an entertaining 79 off 35 and Phil Salt’s 59, again a quiet knock by his standards, completed the job started by their bowlers.
Brief scores: India 158/7 (Shreyas Iyer 80 n.o; Jofra Archer 2/20, Josh Tongue 2/36) in 20 overs lost to England 159/1 in 13.5 overs (Harry Brook 79 n.o, Phil Salt 59).
