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India vs England 4th T20 match is going to be held on Thursday at Bristol Cricket Ground, Bristol. The Men in Blue have lost two of the first three T20 matches against England here, with the first game being washed out due to rain, and in the other two, they were comprehensively defeated by their opponents. Shreyas Iyer’s team collapsed in the last game.
In the last game at Trent Bridge, the Men in Blue were bowled out for 76 while chasing a target of 202. This was his second lowest score in T20I history. After the defeat, fans and former cricketers are extremely disappointed and have criticized some decisions of the team management.
India on the threshold of an unwanted record
To keep the series intact, it is necessary for India to win the fourth T20 match, because a defeat will end their hopes of drawing the series. If they lose this match, they will lose their first back-to-back series since the 2018/19 season, when they lost to Australia and New Zealand. The Men in Blue have already lost the two-match series against Ireland.
They suffered a shock defeat to Lorcan Tucker’s Irish team, their first win over the Men in Blue across all formats. This was Shreyas Iyer’s first assignment as T20I captain. Now, if they lose the series against England, it will be their first T20 series defeat against this team after 12 years.
Shreyas Iyer is already under pressure after a bad start as captaincy
Shreyas Iyer already has some unwanted records to his name at the start of his career as India’s T20I captain, as he has suffered four defeats in his first five matches, with no other Indian T20I captain being without a win in his first five matches. He made this record in his name after India’s crushing defeat by 125 runs in the last match.
After the loss in the last game, this is India’s longest winless streak in T20Is since winning the T20 World Cup, with four losses and one no result. They have lost four consecutive matches twice before, once in 2009 under the captaincy of MS Dhoni and in 2021 under the captaincy of Shikhar Dhawan, and then lost the first two matches of the T20 World Cup under the leadership of Virat Kohli.
Shreyas Iyer needs to take a big step for the team
Shreyas Iyer criticized the entire team after the defeat and instructed his teammates to recover from recent failures and hope for a big comeback. While the Men in Blue may no longer win the T20I series, they can salvage a 2-2 draw by winning the fourth and fifth matches. Iyer would not want his career to start with two consecutive series defeats.
The reigning T20 World Cup champions are under severe pressure as well, with Gautam Gambhir being questioned over his team selection process and making a left-arm heavy squad and also for dropping Sanju Samson from the team. It is expected that Sanju will return to the team in place of Tilak Verma in the upcoming match.
