The 56-run Indian defeat in the fifth and final T20 on Saturday night should not come as a surprise to anyone. Going into the match, they were already a demotivated bunch having lost the last three games as well as the five-game rubber after a washout in the first game at Chester-le-Street.
However, what was surprising was that they didn't put up much of a fight. Much before they came out to chase England's 257/3 (the highest by any team against India in T20Is), they had lost the game. The biggest indicator of what kind of space a team is in is not exactly how it bats or bowls. It's more often than not how it fields. The Indians were awfully poor in the field at the Ageas Bowl after deciding to have a bowl at the toss. England captain Harry Brook was helped twice, first by Shivam Dube and then by Ishan Kishan. The centurion of the match, Jos Buttler too was dropped by Suryansh Shedge at deep cover on 101.
In the fifth over, bowled by Prince Yadav, Dube ran back from short third man but failed to judge the top-edge's trajectory and made a hash of the opportunity with the ball dropping nowhere close to his hands. The England captain was on 3 at the time. At the end of the innings, he was unbeaten on 95 off 45 balls with the help of four fours and eight sixes. He really punished India.
Buttler, after the Shedge spill, went on to score 131 off 64 balls. In T20s, the margins are very small; if the two batters had not been given those lifelines, India wouldn't have had to chase such a big total. If they were chasing 30-40 runs fewer, they would have had a chance at least. The kind of batting they had shown in the previous games, hoping that they would be able to chase down 258 would have been nothing but a madman's dream.
Iyer struggled too with his captaincy
So India's fielding gave us a peek into their state of mind. Shreyas Iyer also appeared not to have his wits about him. After two quiet overs in the 17th and 18th, inexplicably, he turned to Dube to have a bowl. The all-rounder hadn't bowled a single over before that, and was simply thrown in at the deep end. He gave away 22 runs in that over. It should have been Shedge instead, who had bowled three overs before.
After two losses in Ireland and four in England, India now have a lot of introspection to do. Like whether they should have let Vaibhav Sooryavanshi wait a little longer, whether they should have persisted with Sanju Samson in light of his services in recent times, and whether the time had come to find suitable replacements for Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya since they won't always be available. They were terribly missed, particularly in England.
It's been an embarrassing UK tour for the world champions to all intents and purposes. It will take some time before the memories of this tour completely fade out for players and fans alike.