4 min readMumbaiJul 12, 2026 12:08 AM IST For India’s T20 team, the start of a new era was supposed to bring fresh possibilities. Taking the captaincy from Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer was supposed to usher the team into a new direction after the T20 World Cup triumph. The regime change was supposed to be smooth. It has been anything but. Six completed games into Iyer’s captaincy across Ireland and England, India remain without a win, slipping to another defeat, this time by 56 runs in Southampton. With this loss, they have also lost their No. 1 ranking to England. Chasing 258 for a consolation win in the fifth T20I, India needed one of their best batting efforts of the series to avoid a 4-0 defeat. The drama began even before a ball was bowled. Sanju Samson was surprisingly recalled to the playing XI after missing the last three games. He showed his compatriots how to counter the short ball by pulling Josh Tongue twice into the stands in the second over. India needed much …