Captain Iyer alone overshadowed the entire team. (Photo- PTI)
Shreyas Iyer, IND vs ENG 4th T20I: In the fourth do-or-die T20 match against England, Indian team captain Shreyas Iyer played an amazing inning, which saved Team India from embarrassment. While on one hand all the other Indian batsmen were seen surrendering on the bouncy pitch of England, on the other hand Iyer showed what is called a captaincy innings in difficult conditions. He single-handedly scored more runs than the entire team and took India to a respectable score of 158 runs for 7 wickets in 20 overs.
Captain Iyer single-handedly overshadowed the entire team.
On the Bristol pitch, it seemed as if Shreyas Iyer was batting on a different track. He played a stormy and intelligent inning of unbeaten 80 runs with the help of 4 fours and 5 skyscraper sixes in just 49 balls. The most unique statistic of this match was that apart from Iyer, the rest of the team together could not score runs equal to him. All the other batsmen of the team together scored only 74 runs in this match, while 4 runs were extra.
Equaling King Kohli’s historical record
With this inning of 80 runs, Shreyas Iyer, as Indian captain, has equaled the record of the highest individual score in T20 International against England. Earlier this record was completely in the name of Virat Kohli. Virat Kohli also played an unbeaten inning of 80 runs as captain against England.
Top order scattered like cards
The Indian team’s batsmen, who were trailing 0-2 in the series, once again succumbed to excessive bounce. Jofra Archer dismissed young opener Vaibhav Suryavanshi (15 runs) for the second consecutive time in this series, while Josh Tong trapped Ishan Kishan (4 runs) on a short ball inside the powerplay. After this, Abhishek Sharma (16), who was looking in great form, was also caught by Adil Rashid off his bowling.
From here Captain Iyer got the support of Shivam Dubey (22). Both of them made a solid partnership of 53 runs for the fifth wicket and took the team beyond 100. Dubey was promoted to number 5 to play the spinners, but he was seen struggling a lot and eventually got caught by Will Jacques while trying to play a big shot. Due to his slow game, it seemed that vice-captain Tilak Verma would have been a better option, but Tilak, who came to bat later, could also score only 11 runs.
