On their ongoing tour of the UK, the Indian cricket team has been pushed into a territory where they haven’t been in the last eight years.
The new era of India’s T20I setup, under Shreyas Iyer, has begun inauspiciously with series defeats to Ireland and England. India have failed to win a single match on their UK trip hitherto, going down 2-0 to Ireland and 3-0 to England, with one game to go.
This is the first time since 2019 that India suffered two consecutive T20I series defeats, an era where Virat Kohli was the captain.
Moving on from their 2026 T20 World Cup-winning captain, Suryakumar Yadav, and in the absence of Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya, and dropping Sanju Samson, the Man of the Tournament at the T20 WC, after only three failures, India have failed to even put a significant foot forward on this tour.
Barring the fifties from Shreyas Iyer, there has been little positive for the visitors to take away. In fact, in the 4th T20I in Bristol, it was a proper hammering that India received. India were halted to only 158, and then Salt and Brook marauded the Indian bowlers to clinch the match in 13.5 overs and pocket the series.
To make matters worse ahead of the 5th T20I, India are also without the services of mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy and pace-bowling all-rounder Harshit Rana, who both are down with hamstring injuries.
It has been a depressing return to T20I cricket for the T20 World Cup champions, who were touted as arguably the strongest-ever T20 team when they lifted the trophy in March.
There’s still something to play for in the 5th T20I for Iyer and co. as the skipper searches for this first victory as India’s T20I captain and India’s maiden win on this UK tour.
IND vs ENG: When and where is the India vs England 5th T20I?
The fifth and last T20I of the India vs England series will be played on July 11 at the Rose Bowl in Southampton. The match is scheduled to start at 7:00 PM IST.
Talking about India’s probable playing XI, Iyer replaced the injured pair of Varun and Harshit with Sundar and Prasidh in the 4th T20I, but neither of them made a notable contribution. There have been questions raised over whether this management is capable of bringing the best out of Sundar in T20Is. But Sundar might just manage to hold onto this place for the 5th T20I, given Ravi Bishnoi had a poor outing earlier.
Meanwhile, the bigger question remains for the management: do India bring back Sanju Samson in the side? Samson was dropped for young Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. However, the 15-year-old has found the going tough.
Away from the flat pitches in India and onto the more balanced conditions in England, Sooryavanshi has managed scores of 14, 13, and 15. More importantly, his weakness against short balls has been laid bare by Jofra Archer.
For the last T20I, as Iyer and Gambhir hope to salvage a consolation victory, they would ponder over bringing Samson back and dropping Sooryavanshi. That call, though, would send conflicting messages to everyone.
Further, Axar Patel, whose place in the T20I XI seems to have become untouchable during the T20 World Cup, is now not a guaranteed starter as he is not so much of a match-winner in English conditions as he is in other parts of the world. Suryansh Shedge could get another opportunity to showcase his skills.
IND vs ENG: India Playing XI For 5th T20I – Predicted
Sanju Samson/Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan (wk), Tilak Varma, Shreyas Iyer (c), Washington Sundar, Suryansh Shedge/Axar Patel, Shivam Dube, Arshdeep Singh, Prince Yadav, Prasidh Krishna
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