India vs England 5th T20I preview: Cornered Shreyas Iyer looks to avoid 4-0 whitewash in Southampton

A cornered Shreyas Iyer leads a depleted Indian team into the fifth T20I against England in Southampton, desperately seeking a consolation win to avoid a humiliating 4-0 series whitewash after a wretched, winless run across the United Kingdom

Southampton: 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 the north of England in Durham to finally arrive in the southern city of Southampton to close the five-match series, in which one game was washed out.

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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 for the second game at Old Trafford, where it was in the game until the start of the 17th over (bowled by Ravi Bishnoi). Nottingham witnessed India’s worst batting performance—a dismal 76 all out—while Bristol was a perfect example of being outplayed in every department of the game.

A consolation win will do little to salvage pride, but even then, a die-hard Iyer fan would take a 1-3 defeat any day over the ignominy associated with a 0-4 humiliation in the early days of his captaincy.

Not being able to cope with the 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 after a 29-run over, the options in the bowling department are limited.

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 with in the coming years.

While Sanju Samson’s omission from the playing eleven and the Zimbabwe tour 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 is not of great benefit to the team.

For England, it is not just the pace bowling; their spinners Will Jacks, Adil Rashid, and Liam Dawson (until match No. 3) have been brilliant at taking pace off deliveries, which their Indian counterparts have failed to do.

In the batting department, everyone from Phil Salt, Jos Buttler, and skipper Harry Brook to young Jacob Bethell has dominated the Indian attack, taking full advantage of familiar conditions.

Iyer will want to avert another abject surrender, which currently 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 IST.