former indian wicketkeeper batsman Dinesh Karthik Questioning Gautam Gambhir-led team management after pacer Harshit Rana’s early promotion Shivam Dubey India suffered a disastrous batting failure in the third T20I against England at Trent Bridge. India’s chase of 202 soon evaporated after Axar Patel was dismissed off the last ball of the fifth over, leaving the visitors in trouble at 52/5. Instead of sending out Dube, the team management chose to promote Harshit Rana, a move that caused the team management to Kartik I was shocked when I commented. “Are you serious? Harshit Rana ahead of Shivam Dube? You can’t be serious,” Karthik said on air. Dube eventually reached the crease after two overs but failed to salvage the innings, scoring just two runs in four deliveries before being dismissed josh tongue. Karthik admitted that he could not understand the decision to delay Dube’s arrival and said it raised questions about the team’s confidence in the all-rounder. “Did they (the team management) not trust Dube enough to field him at this stage? Instead, they promoted Harshit Rana ahead of him. I’m not sure if that was the right thing to do,” he added. The selection call came during one of India’s worst ever batting performances. Phil Salt made 70 off 44 balls on a challenging Trent Bridge pitch, while Sam Curran took 41 off just 24 balls as England finished at 201/7. Despite Vaibhav Sooryavanshi hitting two sixes in his 5-ball 13, India’s fightback never got off the ground. The visitors fell from 23/0 to 76 in just 11.4 overs with Josh Tongue taking 4/28 and Jofra Archer taking 3/29. The 125-run defeat was India’s biggest defeat in T20 internationals, surpassing their previous heaviest defeat of 80 runs against New Zealand in 2019. It also marked India’s second-lowest total in the format. The defeat gave England a 2-0 lead in the five-match series after being eliminated in the first game. India have lost their last four T20Is after losing the series 0-2 to Ireland. team leader Shreyas Iyer Describing the performance as “terrible” after the game, he admitted his side needed to “completely go back to the drawing board”. England captain Harry Brooke praised the team’s all-round performance, saying: “We adapted well with the bat. It was great to carry that over to the bowling.” India must now win the remaining two games to avoid losing the T20I series.
