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After defending the T20 World Cup title, the Indian team that went on the United Kingdom (UK) tour is yearning for a win. They had to face a humiliating 0-2 defeat at the hands of Ireland in Belfast. Team India’s batting against Ireland had flopped badly. After this, in the first match of the 5-match T20 series against England, the Indian team, despite scoring 87 runs at the loss of 2 wickets in 8 overs, could only reach the score of 189/7 in the stipulated 20 overs.

After the dismissal of opener Abhishek Sharma (59 runs in 24 balls), vice-captain Tilak Verma, who came to the crease, got only 13 runs in 13 balls, due to which the momentum shifted towards the English team. Shivam Dubey (42 not out in 21 balls) gave a strong finish but still Team India failed to cross the score of 180. It was good that the rain came, otherwise these runs could have fallen short at the Riverside Ground, Chester Lee Street.

Tilak getting stuck every time

In the first T20 match against Ireland, Tilak could score only 19 runs in 21 balls in the chase of 183 runs. He came to the crease when India’s score was 60/3 in 5.1 overs. Tilak was out as the fifth wicket on the score of 90 on the second ball of the 11th over. He spent full time at the crease but kept walking when the team needed him most. Team India lost this match by 34 runs.

In the second and last T20 match of the series, Ireland gave India a target of 155 runs. While chasing the target, India lost 4 wickets in the powerplay. Tilak took up the responsibility of handling the innings and completed his half-century in 45 balls. Although his work was not complete yet and he needed to stand till the end but he was out on the very next ball. He returned to the pavilion after scoring 55 runs in 46 balls at a strike rate of 119.56, which included 3 fours and 1 six.

When Tilak was out, India needed 38 runs in 16 balls to avoid series defeat. Harshit Rana took the team closer to the target by scoring 21 runs in 10 balls but he could not avoid defeat. The blame for India’s defeat was placed on Tilak. Critics believed that if he had scored fast in the middle overs, there would not have been so many runs left for the death overs, which would not have proved impossible for the lower order.

Tilak is not liking the leadership role

23-year-old Tilak was made the vice-captain of the T20 team before the UK tour. It seems that the leadership role has become an additional burden on him, due to which he is not able to play openly. After becoming the vice-captain, Tilak has been able to score only 87 runs in 3 innings at a very poor strike rate of 108.75. Just before the UK tour, he was given the captaincy of India-A for the ODI tri-series held in Sri Lanka.

India-A won the title by defeating Sri Lanka in the final but Tilak had to face criticism due to slow batting in the entire tri-series. He was the batsman who scored the most runs (275) for India-A. But his strike rate was only 74.93. Tilak had scored 67 runs in 90 balls in the final. It is worth noting that due to the stormy batting of Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Priyansh Arya, India-A had scored 136 runs in 9.5 overs, when Tilak entered the crease. Despite this, he could not play even with a strike rate of 100.

But will Tilak also be cut like Pant?

Wicketkeeper batsman Rishabh Pant was recently stripped of the vice-captaincy of the Indian Test team. After selecting the team for the only Test against Afghanistan, Chief Selector Ajit Agarkar explained the reason for Pant’s demotion. He said that we want Pant to be able to play freely without any extra pressure. Head coach Gautam Gambhir also reiterated the same thing in the press conference before that only Test match held in Mullanpur. Now it has to be seen whether action is taken against Tilak, who is not able to play his natural game under the pressure of leadership role or not.