Shreyas Iyer rues India's lack of adaptability, lauds England for all-round show

Shreyas Iyer admitted that India's winless series against England "definitely hurt" after their final T20I left them on the wrong end of a 0-4 scoreline, and a surrender of the No.1 spot in the ICC team rankings.

India entered the fifth T20I on Saturday looking for a consolation win but could only watch on as England piled on 257/3. India conceded 17 sixes, the second-most by them in a T20I. It ended with a 56-run loss, and a displacement from the top of the T20I rankings.

In seven T20Is at the helm now, Iyer has lost six, with one ending without result. Iyer said the hardest part about navigating through the losses has been the challenge of travelling and adapting to different conditions.

"Honestly, hasn't been any particular point but you see we kept on going from one venue to another and we kept on facing challenges especially in terms of the dimensions, the grounds, the conditions," Iyer said. "Just to adapt to it as quickly as we could have anticipated that didn't happen, that was one challenge and the other one is definitely they outplayed us in all departments. So, I think combinations of all these points definitely led to this result".

Iyer marked out fielding as one aspect the team particularly lagged in but also called the result a great learning for him as a captain, and for those in the squad for the first time.

"When I say great learning, it's all about how you turn up for the tournament," Iyer said. "You can't just have that mindset that you will come to England and you will win the series. You need to work hard, you need to be focused, which we were as a team. But I personally feel that they played exceptional cricket throughout in all three departments."

India made a couple of changes for the final T20I, excluding Vaibhav Soorayavanshi for Sanju Samson, and bringing Suryansh Shedge in place of Washington Sundar. With three frontline quicks and Axar Patel as the fourth option, Shivam Dube and Shedge shared four overs, conceding 61 runs, with Dube picking two.

When asked about the decision to drop Sundar, Iyer said: "Washington you saw how he performed in the last game. He's a talented lad but I felt that every individual who is part of this team right now, we lost the series so we wanted to try something new, which combination could have been better on this particular wicket, which was a belter today."

India's search for the right combination extended to benching Sooryavanshi for Samson at the top of the order. "We needed to try the best combination that would be perfect on these conditions," Iyer said. "And we also wanted a right-hander to go on with Abhishek. As I mentioned earlier, we wanted to try a different combination which would be suitable for this particular game. And he's (Samson's) a gun batsman. He has won so many series for us in the past."

The series is also a hard personal reflection on Iyer's captaincy: having taken over from Suryakumar Yadav right after India's second T20 World Cup title, the expectations were naturally high. However, Iyer insisted the transition was "not hard", calling it a "privilege to take over captaincy".

"For me to thrive under pressure, to learn from these moments is definitely going to make me better going forward," Iyer said. "And that's my mindset right now. Not thinking much about how people are going to think about this particular series because good and bad is part and parcel of this game.

"Going forward, I need to be extremely positive enough in how I'm going to nurture everyone who is playing around me and especially in overseas conditions. We know we are going to play in Australia and many other cities before that. So, the best camaraderie to fit in these conditions is our goal and going forward, that is going to be our plan."