India T20I skipper Shreyas Iyer has reaffirmed that his poor start to life as captain would help him learn and become better after the 4-0 thrashing at the hands of England was sealed with a 57-run win for the Three Lions in Southampton.
Iyer was named captain in place of 2026 T20 World Cup-winning skipper Suryakumar Yadav. In his first seven matches as captain, Iyer and his team have seen six losses and a washout and are yet to record their first win. The England series followed a 2-0 whitewash at the hands
of a spirited Ireland side.
"For me to thrive under pressure, to learn from these moments is definitely going to make me better going forward. And that's my mindset right now. Not thinking much about how people are going to think about this particular series because good and bad is part and parcel of this game," Iyer said at the post-match press conference.
"Going forward, I need to be extremely positive enough in how I'm going to basically nurture everyone who is playing around me and especially in overseas conditions. We know we are going to play in Australia and many other cities before that. So, the best camaraderie to fit in these conditions is our goal and going forward, that is going to be our plan," he added.
The Men in Blue were thoroughly outplayed by a strong English side and were put to the sword at the Rose Bowl, withJos Buttler and Harry Brook combining a huge 233-run stand, taking their side to a sizeable 257 for 3. Buttler scored his second T20I century, finishing with 131 off just 64 balls, while Brook remained unbeaten on 95 off just 45. Iyer rued his team's inability to adapt to conditions, often found wanting against the short ball throughout the series, and credited the England side for their all-round performance.
"Honestly, hasn't been any particular point but you see we kept on going from one venue to another and we kept on facing challenges especially in terms of the dimensions, the grounds, the conditions. Just to adapt to it as quickly as we could have anticipated that didn't happen, that was one challenge and the other one is definitely they outplayed us in all departments I would say. So, I think combinations of all these points definitely led to this result," Iyer said.
"When I say great learning, it's all about how you turn up for the tournament. You can't just have that mindset that you will come to England and you will win the series. You need to work hard, you need to be focused, which we were as a team. But I personally feel that they played exceptional cricket throughout in all three departments. So, probably, the results also went in their favour because they were comprehensive in all three departments," he added.
'Needed the best combination on these conditions' – Iyer on Samson's return
India's T20 World Cup hero of March, Sanju Samson, found himself out of the team after the first T20I in favour of the prodigious Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. Sooryavanshi was unable to get big scores in his three outings, with scores of 14, 13, and 15 in three innings. With India struggling with an increased presence of left-handers in their team, Samson was brought back into the side. They also went in with a solitary spinner, with Washington Sundar being dropped to try out different combinations, as stated by Iyer.
"We needed to try the best combination that would be perfect on these conditions," Iyer said. "And we also wanted a right-hander to go on with Abhishek. So, that was one of the major reasons. And if you see, I was the only one out of all the left-handers who was a right-hander. As I mentioned earlier, we wanted to try a different combination which would be suitable for this particular game. And he's [Samson] a gun batsman. He has won so many series for us in the past," Iyer said, via the aforementioned source.
"Washington you saw, I mean, how he performed in the last game and how he's been going. He's a talented lad but I felt that every individual who is part of this team right now, we lost the series so we wanted to try something new, which combination could have been better on this particular wicket, which was a belter today. So, I think based on these decisions, we probably decided to drop him today and we wanted to try a new combination," he added.
