India’s T20I vice-captain Tilak Varma believes the team’s recently slump in form is due to overplaying in Asian conditions. Varma highlighted that the Men in Blue mostly played for two years in the sub-continent conditions and it was not easy for them to acclimatise to the UK conditions.
India was stunned 0-2 by Ireland and then suffered a 0-4 series loss against England. Thus, India lost six matches on the bounce on the UK tour and they are yet to register their maiden win under Shreyas Iyer’s captaincy.
“Honestly, if you see, Shreyas bhai is leading a successful team right now. So, of course, there will be responsibilities and expectations. At the same point, there were different conditions in Ireland. If you look at the last two years, we played more matches in Asia,” Tilak said before the series.
“And after two years, we came straight to the overseas conditions, that too against a good side. England is a very good side. We all saw how they played in the semifinals of the T20 World Cup. So, of course, it will be challenging to play in good conditions against a good side,” he added.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe had stunned India by winning the opening game of the last series. Varma admitted that Zimbabwe is a good team and they will need to bring their A-game against the hosts.
“Zimbabwe is also a very good team. They are a very competitive team. And you see last year when we started the series, they won the first game. We expect them to come hard at us.”
Varma reckons Indian players experience of earlier playing in the Zimbabwean conditions will come in handy in the upcoming series.
“As you can see, the wickets were good last time around. So I was talking to them, because when we played in Zimbabwe last year, our junior team came in. So at that time, almost a lot of people from that team are still here.
“So I was talking to them (Vaibhav Sooryavanshi) about how the wicket will behave. At the same point, again, we have played two series, Ireland and England. So if you look at the ground, the dimensions are very big, and it’s windy and the conditions are cool. It would be an advantage having played here.”
The first T20I between India and Zimbabwe will be played at Harare on Thursday.
