Ex-India Star Flags Major T20I Weakness After England Defeat in Rajkot

India lost the third T20I against England by 26 runs. This left them with a lead in the five-match series at 2-1. India failed to gain an early upper hand, which helped the team to chase England's target of 172 runs and eventually led to a downfall. Former Indian cricketer Irfan Pathan was quite candid about the reason behind the loss: major flaw in approach during chase.

Irfan Pathan, on social media, discussed the importance of strike rotation in T20 cricket, particularly on slower pitches. "In T20, the ability to rotate the strike is very important on a slightly slower wicket. India left it too much for too late in the end," he said, adding, "India could not sustain the tempo of the game throughout. That was perhaps their biggest problem.".

The game started with India skipper Suryakumar Yadav winning the toss and electing to bowl first. Ben Duckett's top order went pretty well and played a half-century. This partnership with Jos Buttler took England all the way to 83/2, as Duckett fell caught by Abhishek Sharma off Hardik Pandya. England's middle order, however, could not withstand the onslaught of India's Varun Chakravarthy, who produced a brilliant spell, taking 5 wickets for just 24 runs. His performance reduced England to 127/8, with only Liam Livingstone offering resistance.

Livingstone hammered a heroic knock, scoring 43 runs off 24 balls. Adil Rashid and Mark Wood provided him support in the late overs. His innings and the other settled innings helped take the total to 171/9 for England. This was considered a number maybe just short of par but, still very much gettable by India to surpass it.

When India started their chase, they were under tremendous pressure from the England bowlers, who hit early and often. None of the top four Indian batsmen could contribute much; the highest score came in at 24 runs. Although some fireworks came from Abhishek Sharma, who played an aggressive knock earlier in the innings, wickets kept tumbling for India.

Hardik Pandya, who was looking good, batted grittily for 40 off 35 balls. He and Axar Patel added 38 runs for the sixth wicket, which kept India in the chase for some time. After Pandya's dismissal though, by Buttler off the bowling of Jamie Overton, in the 19th over, hope of an eventual chase victory had to fade out. The lower order had much to do and eventually finished 26 runs short, ending the match at 145/9.

Irfan Pathan in his comments speaks of a vital aspect of T20 batting in challenging conditions. While batting on slow wickets, it is vital for the batters to rotate strike and maintain the flow of runs. In this game, India could not find that balance; besides the few individual performances, there was no building of partnerships towards crossing the line. It was left too much to do in the final overs, which eventually made it contribute to their defeat.

This loss in the third T20I keeps the series alive because India is still ahead by 2-1. The teams will now travel to Pune for the fourth match on January 31 where India would like to regroup and sort out the issues pointed out by Pathan. The Indian side would possibly need to work more on the strike rotation and better pacing of the innings to seal the series with a win.

As the matches progress, both teams will move ahead to refine their strategy more and India will seek a comeback in Pune where they will surely have learned their lesson about being defeated at Rajkot