These are tough times for Team India. And the side has seen brighter and happier days in the past marked by widely respected and much vaunted success.
The recent T20 loss suffered at the hands of England in the ongoing T20 series is just another random or sudden loss. None of it, on the contrary seems true; it’s actually a continuous string of struggles marked by constant changes made to the present day Indian side in the T20 format and an evident or visible sense of discomfort stemming from perhaps a lack of adaptability to the current conditions that’s led to the low scores. And forget not, the sorry outcomes.
And perhaps this is the hardest part for one to bear; Team India has now accumulated- rather sorrily- five consecutive defeats where it comes to its five recent T20 games. Which means quite clearly that India hasn’t won a single contest in the briefest format of the game for some time now.
So just when it had seemed that the 2-nil surprise defeat sustained at the hands of Ireland was enough to upset the team’s rhythm leading to mounting doubts and whatnot, the losses endured at the hands of England haven’t helped. Not one bit! And as a matter of fact what further hurts is that in their most recent contest against England, the third game of the 5-match series, the Gautam Gambhir coached and Shreyas Iyer-led side succumbed to a listless scorecard that read 76 all out.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Ishan Kishan, Abhishek Sharma and Axar Patel were the only four batters of ten who could touch 2-digit scores. Archer and Tongue did much of the damage between them, taking 7 wickets.
But an arresting site came to life just moments after India’s harrowing defeat at Trent Bridge happened. A bunch of fans stunned to see the downfall gathered around the team and started exclaiming, ‘We want Sanju’, stating clearly what was in their minds and hearts.
The decision to leave Sanju Samson out of the team from the contests and to not select him for the forthcoming tour to Zimbabwe has hurt countless fans. As a matter of fact, the blazing right hander, who did register a string of single digit scores in his last 3 games, was in the form of his life top scoring in the 2026 T20 World Cup tournament for India with multiple half centuries, over 320 runs and a commanding strike rate of over 180. Was Samson dealt fairly with is anyone’s call. When can he get back into the side is none can tell. But the frustration on the part of the fans is there to be seen!