India loses another series and T20 crisis deepens after latest heavy defeat to England

Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

In­dia lurched deep­er in­to a cri­sis in crick­et’s Twen­ty20 for­mat af­ter slump­ing to a sec­ond straight se­ries loss, with Eng­land tak­ing an in­sur­mount­able 3-0 lead on the back of de­struc­tive half-cen­turies by Phil Salt and Har­ry Brook.

Eng­land won the 4th T20 of the five-match se­ries by nine wick­ets and with 6.1 overs to spare on Thurs­day, seal­ing a first ever bi­lat­er­al T20 se­ries vic­to­ry over In­dia.

On the back of In­dia’s stun­ning 2-0 se­ries de­feat in Ire­land, it’s now five straight loss­es in com­plet­ed T20 match­es — an­oth­er un­want­ed first for T20 world cham­pi­on In­dia. One of the match­es against Eng­land was a washout.

In­dia cap­tain Shreyas Iy­er won the toss at the Coun­ty Ground in Bris­tol, chose to bat and led his team to 158-7 in 20 overs, af­ter ral­ly­ing from 48-3 with teenage sen­sa­tion Vaib­hav Soorya­van­shi out for 15 in an­oth­er dis­ap­point­ing out­ing. Iy­er’s 49-ball in­nings in­clud­ed four fours and five six­es. Eng­land pac­ers Jofra Archer and Josh Tongue shared four wick­ets.

Brook, the Eng­land cap­tain, smashed 79 not out off on­ly 35 balls, with eight fours and four six­es. Open­er Salt hit a 42-ball 59 not out. The pair came to­geth­er at 13-1 af­ter Jos But­tler was caught be­hind in the third over.

Se­ries to for­get for In­dia

Eng­land had in­flict­ed In­dia’s biggest ever T20 loss by 125 runs in the third T20, with In­dia dis­missed for 76.

Eng­land won the sec­ond Twen­ty20 by four wick­ets when Soorya­van­shi be­came the youngest man to play for In­dia at 15 years and 99 days. He scored a 10-ball 14 on de­but, fol­lowed by an in­nings of 13 in the third T20. —BRIS­TOL, Eng­land (AP)