England can seal a 4-0 series whitewash and take India’s No.1 T20I ranking when the fifth and final T20 international starts at the Rose Bowl in Southampton at 2.30pm on Saturday.
According to ESPNcricinfo’s match preview, victory for Harry Brook’s side would lift England to the top of the ICC T20I rankings at India’s expense, capping a tour in which the hosts have won every completed match. India remain winless in the format under new captain Shreyas Iyer — their longest barren run since they first played a T20 international in 2006 — after the opening game at Chester-le-Street was washed out.
Shreyas Iyer Battles To End India’s Winless Tour
India’s most recent effort followed a familiar pattern. Iyer’s unbeaten 80 from 48 balls dragged the tourists to 158-7 in Bristol, IANS reports, before Brook and Phil Salt tore the total apart with an unbroken 151-run stand to complete a nine-wicket win that sealed the series with 37 balls to spare.
Jofra Archer leads the series wicket charts with six, and his new-ball partnership with Josh Tongue — devastating in England’s record-breaking T20I win earlier in the series — has repeatedly troubled an India top order in which teenage opener Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is still searching for a defining score. Iyer is India’s leading run-scorer in the series with 190.
With the ODI leg of the tour still to come, Saturday offers India a final chance to take something from the T20 series. For England, one more win completes the sweep and, as ESPNcricinfo notes, would crown them the world’s top-ranked T20I side.
