The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has now indicated that it would assess the team’s performance in Ireland and England, clearly concerned by India’s ongoing decline in England. “We will have a review meeting with the core members of the team to discuss what went wrong in England,” stated Devajit Saikia, secretary of the BCCI.
The team’s core players will participate in the review. India has now lost two consecutive Twenty20 International series, the first in Ireland and the second in England. In the third game at Trent Bridge, the squad suffered its worst T20I loss against England and its first-ever series loss against Ireland.
While India have already lost the series, they still have a game to go, and for the first time in years, India will be looking to avoid a whitewash in white ball cricket. What has perplexed audiences most is that the team currently is playing most of the players that were part of the WC winning squad early this year. Makes Captain Shreyas Iyer’s comment of a ‘transitioning team’ all the more confusing.
The Indian T20 team’s poor performance in the current series against England is being monitored by the BCCI. This is not unusual, though, and it may occur in international cricket. We view it as a wholly negative phase,” Saikia said while attending the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) annual convention in Edinburgh, Scotland.
After winning the championship at home, India is the format’s reigning champion. However, the players have found it difficult to adjust to the conditions abroad. With scores of 14, 13, and 15 in his first three international games, the much-heralded debut of IPL Orange Cap winner Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has failed to make an impression.
After replacing Suryakumar Yadav as captain following the World Cup, Shreyas Iyer has failed to lead India to a victory. India has lost five of the six games he has led, with one ending in a draw. “The team’s performance and how to fix the flaws will be the only topics of discussion during the review meeting. We won’t talk about anything else,” the BCCI secretary declared. Shreyas too finds himself in uncharted territories, his stats of his last 13 matches as captain read, 1 win, 1 no result and a whopping 11 losses, with series losses too Ireland and England. The one sole victory was in the IPL against bottom ranked LSG.
In a bilateral T20I series consisting of two or more games, England has never defeated India before. India’s last two bilateral series losses against England (in any format) were during the 2018 visit (by 4-1 in Tests and 2-1 in ODIs).
While fans do have something to look forward to after the conclusion of the T20i leg, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma will play in the three ODIs, Kohli was last seen in action in the IPL, while Rohit was part of the 3 match ODI series against Afganistan. Kohli returns from a hamstring injury that he sustained during the IPL final. The BCCI anticipates a change. “Since there is an ODI series, we are hoping that the team will be back in good form,” Saikia said, adding, “Once the ODI series gets over on July 19 and the team comes back, we will have a review meeting.”
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