Durham: India’s newly-appointed T20 captain Shreyas Iyer said the opening series defeat against Ireland was depressing as he admitted that the defending world champions “didn’t expect” the home side to dominate.
Iyer replaced Suryakumar as India’s T20I captain earlier this month after the 31-year-old had a disastrous start to his captaincy, making his first appearance for the world champions in more than two years.
During the series, India became the first team to successfully defend the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup and lost only one match in both tournaments.
India captain Iyer, who scored three and 10 in two T20Is against Ireland, now faces a big challenge as they face two-time champions England in the five-match series in Durham on Wednesday.
Addressing a pre-series conference ahead of the opening match, Iyer admitted they had “failed in analysis and planning” but credited the European team for how they played to secure a historic 2-0 series win.
“It wasn’t embarrassing but it was depressing for us because we certainly didn’t expect Ireland to play well,” Iyer told reporters.
“They outplayed us in every department. They had better ideas about the pitch dimensions and we failed in terms of analysis and planning. The pitch and the dimensions and how the wicket would play… So kudos to them, thanks to them, but we learned a lot from that series,” he added.