England vs India, 3rd T20I, India tour of England, 2026 - CommentaryENG vs IND, 3rd T20I, India tour of England, 2026 - Commentary

Atrocious cricket, an awful performance... that's how Shreyas Iyer summed up the game post-match. England seem to be very happy with the Archer-Tongue combo. They have managed to unsettle the Indian batters early in the last two games. They have beat them with the ball mainly, more than bat. There is pressure on the Indian think tank. They have made changes to the personnel but it's not working. It can be a very uncomfortable dressing room at the moment but it needs the calm in the storm more than anything else. Each of these players have done well in different capacities in the past so the question largely isn't about the skill. After the highs of the World Cup victory, it's never easy taking over captaincy and still searching for a win after 5 games. Can the visitors bounce back in style in Bristol or it is going to be back-to-back series losses? We will find out on Thursday. See you soon!

Brook thanks Morgan and walks off, before he turns back and does a thumbs up gesture.

Morgan: Harry, congratulations to you and your team!

Brook: Just adapting to the surfaces as much as we can, really. It’s recognizing as early as we can what’s going to be the hardest to hit on there. And as a batting unit, using the pitch as well as we can to access different areas of the ground as well. And tonight was a perfect example of that. We bowled beautifully and we scraped away to a good score as well.

Morgan: Is there anything you can improve on moving to Bristol and then on to Southampton? Or is it a matter of sticking to the process?

Brook: We didn’t need to talk much, to be honest. We’d already had a lot of conversations up there before going out. The bowlers knew exactly what we needed to do. Hit the top of the stumps with the occasional bouncer. As simple as it sounds, it worked beautifully tonight.

Morgan: Tell me, what did you say at the halfway stage to ensue the bowling performance that came?

Brook: Yeah, and everybody knows how crucial them runs can be as well. To get us to 200 on that surface, which was a tricky surface when it started, was a phenomenal effort.

Morgan: And a word on the lower order as well. Will Jacks, Sam Curran, guys that came in and really took the game by the scruff of the neck. Crucial runs.

Brook: Yeah, just like I said, the conversations we had. Salty (Phil Salt) obviously played a mega innings there, and Jos’s (Buttler) little cameo in the powerplay got us off to a really good start. But we recognized really early that it was a tough surface to hit from the top of the stumps. Lots of conversations with myself, Baz (Brendon McCullum), and the batters who had been out there, and the coaches as well. So we had our plans and we stuck to it really well.

Morgan: How does that work, particularly with the experience you have at the top of the order with Phil Salt and Jos Buttler? How easy is it to feed back that it’s not necessarily as good a wicket as you thought? When you come to Trent Bridge, that’s notoriously a good batting wicket.

Brook: The communication. I thought the communication and the plans going out into the second half were perfect. We adapted really well with the bat. We knew it was a tricky surface if they hit the top of the stumps. And to carry that over into our bowling performance was awesome.

Morgan: Harry, walked in with a big smile on your face. No surprise why. Not many days like this as England captain that look and go as seamlessly. What do you put it down to?

Harry Brook | England captain walks up for a chat next:

Shreyas thanks Morgan and leaves after getting a tap on the shoulder by Harry Brook, who is waiting to talk.

Morgan: Shreyas, as ever, thanks your time. Tough day, see you in Bristol!

Shreyas: Absolutely. As you mentioned, it’s a great opportunity to come back strong. Not dwell too much about what’s happened in the past. We’ve played awful cricket for sure, but a lot of learnings from it as well. Players have to start thinking about how to basically make an impact or create that momentum towards the team. So definitely every individual has to think by himself and see how they can win the matches and take that sort of responsibility.

Morgan: And how quickly will it be for you guys to turn it around? You can only tie the series now, but two big opportunities in the two games left.

Shreyas: I think you can plan a lot once you’re there in the team meeting, but once you come to the ground, you need to adapt as quickly as possible and try to figure out what lengths are important to bowl on a particular wicket. Like this (pitch) today, the hard lengths were helping the bowlers pretty well. I think we didn’t execute that much. And even in our batting, I think when you’re chasing 200, you need to pace up your innings. You need to have a set pattern of how you’re going to go about that innings. So, we fell a bit short in terms of that. So definitely, execution was awful.

Morgan: You said go back to drawing board. Many captains will have talked about plans before a ball was bowled. Talk us through your plans and what possibly went wrong throughout the course of the game with the ball or with the bat.

Shreyas Iyer: I think it was atrocious. I couldn’t use a better word, honestly. Losing by such a big margin is definitely not acceptable. First things first, I feel that we need to accept this loss and completely go back to the drawing board and see what we did wrong. Looking at the wicket, I don’t think that it was a 200 wicket, first of all, to start with. But other than that, the way we batted, we lost four (five) wickets in the powerplay. I think that itself did create the momentum, and definitely I feel that we lost over there. So, we’ve got to go back to the drawing board.

Eoin Morgan: Shreyas, tough day. Commiserations. How do you sit back and assess the team’s performance?

Shreyas Iyer | India captain interview.

Jofra Archer | PoTM: Obviously happy to contribute to a team win. (Setting the tone early felt good?) It did, but it’s just a lot of holding the nerve. You’re bowling at world-class batters, and you just gotta keep hitting the spot. (At Manchester looked as if you bowled beautifully but didn’t quite have the luck, and got a bit of it today and made the most of it.) Yeah, I’m surprised that it turned around so quickly. You’re gonna bowl good balls, and sometimes those good balls go for boundaries. Same as today, I was lucky to get one wicket with a bad one as well, but for the most part, I’m happy with how it’s coming out. (On Josh Tongue) Brilliant (smiles)! I think we are really similar, so if I don’t get wickets, then definitely, definitely he will. (Is it important in this type of format to bowl in partnerships like you did today?) Yeah, it is. Honestly, I enjoy bowling with him. I’ve bowled with him all summer, bowled with him every game so far since I’ve been back for the summer (smiles). So I really enjoy bouncing ideas off him, seeing what end he’s doing and if it’s cross-seam or whatever. So it’s really good. He also passes the information on as well. It’s really enjoyable.

The pitch was not to be blamed (yes, it was slightly tough when the bowlers hit the hard length), the bowling wasn't overly poor (yes, the execution could have better with a few balls), the opposition bowling wasn't unplayable, just that the batters didn't pick gaps largely while a few shot selections and application could have been better. This Indian side is capable of pulling off above-par totals as well. England were actually kept fairly in check in the powerplay with the bat. Phil Salt managed to hold onto one end and Sam Curran and Will Jacks gave that push in the end for what seemed to be a par score or a score that was definitely chasable. Abhishek and Vaibhav got them off to a quick start but before you could process it, India lost 5 wickets in the space of 19 balls - the first time they have lost 5 wickets inside the powerplay.

Stats by Roshan Gede

Biggest defeat margins for India in T20Is (by runs)
By 125 runs vs ENG, Trent Bridge, 2026
By 80 runs vs NZ, Wellington, 2019
By 76 runs vs SA, Ahmedabad, 2026
By 51 runs vs SA, Mullanpur, 2025
By 50 runs vs NZ, Visakhapatnam, 2026
(Four of the above five have come since December 2025)

Lowest all-out totals for India in T20Is
74 vs AUS, Melbourne, 2008
76 vs ENG, Trent Bridge, 2026
79 vs NZ, Nagpur, 2016
92 vs SA, Cuttack, 2015
101 vs SL, Pune, 2016
102 vs ZIM, Harare, 2024

Longest winless sequences for India in T20Is
5* - June 2026 - July 2026 (4 defeats, 1 NR)
4 - June 2009 - December 2009 (4 defeats)
4 - July 2021 - October 2021 (4 defeats)

Lowest all-out totals vs ENG in T20Is
45 - West Indies, Basseterre, 2019
47 - Oman, North Sound, 2024
55 - West Indies, Dubai, 2021
71 - West Indies, Basseterre, 2019
76 - India, Trent Bridge, 2026
79 - Australia, Southampton, 2005

Most wickets in Men’s T20Is
193 - Rashid Khan
166 - Adil Rashid
165 - Ish Sodhi
164 - Tim Southee
161 - Wanindu Hasaranga
160 - Mustafizur Rahman

4-fers for ENG vs IND in T20Is
4/22 - Jade Dernbach, Old Trafford, 2011
4/27 - Chris Jordan, Edgbaston, 2022
4/28 - Josh Tongue, Trent Bridge, 2026
4/33 - Jofra Archer, Ahmedabad, 2021

India in bilateral T20I series against England before this tour
Series contested: 6
Won: 5
Drawn: 1
*min 2 matches

India in T20Is vs FM teams since December 2025
Batting first: 10 matches, 8 wins, 1 defeat, 1 NR
Batting second: 10 matches, 4 wins, 6 defeats

Shreyas Iyer’s last 12 T20s as captain: 10 defeats, 1 win, 1 NR

5 dismissals for Jos Buttler today is the most by an England wicketkeeper in a T20I, Surpassing four by Matt Prior against South Africa at Newlands, Cape Town during the T20 WC 2007.

The previous least overs India had batted in an innings in which they were bundled out was 17.2 overs against South Africa in Cuttack in 2015.

20:28 Local Time, 19:28 GMT, 00:58 IST: That's a hammering by England. If the losses weren't enough, now Shreyas Iyer has picked up a needless record of India's biggest loss by runs. In the dug out, there was a visual of Abhishek Sharma throwing his head back in disappointment while covering his eyes with his hands in disbelief, while his opening partner Vaibhav also looked up in disbelief. That's the feature of the Indian innings for you. They hit shots, they timed them (too) well, they found fielders. And they were not ready to back down even after the early losses. Even if they went down, they wanted to go down attacking. One of those games for the Indian side, just that it's come when the team hasn't won a single game after winning the T20 World Cup.

Adil Rashid to Varun Chakaravarthy, THATS OUT!! Bowled!!

Josh Tongue to Harshit Rana, THATS OUT!! Caught!!