Southampton, Jul 10 : An Indian team with its back to the wall, led by a captain, who is equally cornered, will look to prevent England from inflicting a seemingly imminent 4-0 ‘whitewash’ when the two contrasting sides clash in the fifth T20 International here on Saturday.
Led by Shreyas Iyer, the Indian team’s journey started in the damp and windy conditions of Belfast. It then covered north of England in Durham to finally be in the southern city of Southampton to close the five-match series in which one game was washed out.
In the six UK cities (including Belfast), one thing has remained common — Iyer’s fortunes have remained wretched as he is still without his first win since becoming captain.
This is the longest winless streak for the Indian men’s team since it first played a T20 International in 2006.
The Indian team has looked completely out of sorts save the second game at Old Trafford where it was in the game till the start of 17th over (bowled by Ravi Bishnoi).
Nottingham witnessed India’s worst batting performance — 76 all-out and Bristol was a perfect example of being outplayed in every department of the game.
The consolation win will do little to salvage the pride but even then, a die-hard Iyer fan would take a 1-3 defeat any day than the ignominy associated with a 0-4 humilation in the early days of his captaincy.
Not being able to cope with pace generated by Jofra Archer and Josh Tongue has certainly left the Indian team management worried.
Not to forget, they haven’t picked the slower and skiddy variations bowled by left-arm seamer Sam Curran.
With Varun Chakravarthy and Harshit Rana ruled out due to hamstring injuries and Ravi Bishnoi making himself virtually unselectable with a 29-run over, the options in the bowling department are not many.
In the batting department, one would like to give Vaibhav Sooryavanshi a long run despite poor returns against short-pitched bowling, something he will only get better at dealing in the coming years.
While Sanju Samson’s omission from the playing eleven and the Zimbabwe touring party has left everyone baffled and angry in equal measure, the only way he can make it to the squad is if the think-tank removes an out of sorts Tilak Varma.
But then, it would mean both Ishan Kishan and Iyer dropping a place each. Kishan batting anywhere below No. 3 isn’t of great benefit for the team.
For England, not just pace bowling but their spinners Will Jacks, Adil Rashid, Liam Dawson (till match No.3) have been brilliant in taking pace off deliveries which their Indian counterparts have failed to do.
In the batting department, everyone from Phil Salt, Jos Buttler, skipper Harry Brook to young Jacob Bethell have dominated the Indian attack and took advantage of familiar conditions.
Iyer would want to avert another abject surrender which looks way more likely than ever.
Teams (from)
India: Shreyas Iyer (captain), Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan (wk), Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Prasidh Krishna, Prince Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Sanju Samson, Suryansh Shedge, Ravi Bishnoi.
England: Harry Brook (captain), Phil Salt, Jos Buttler, Jacob Bethell, Tom Banton, Will Jacks, Sam Curran, Josh Tongue, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Rehan Ahmed, Liam Dawson, Luke Wood, Saqib Mahmood, Sonny Baker, Jordan Cox, James Coles.
Match Starts: 10 pm.
