NEW DELHI: After a disappointing tour of England and Ireland, India captain Shreyas Iyer made it clear that he does not want his players to carry the fear of failure in the T20I series against Zimbabwe.The India captain said the players should not worry about what people say outside the dressing room, and instead focus on expressing themselves freely. “I don’t think they should fear failure because when you have such thoughts in the back of your mind, then you play to save yourself. When you don’t have that fear, you can get the best of yourself,” Iyer said before the first T20I against Zimbabwe. “We don’t have to think too much about what people are saying outside. We have to stay in the present. The more we play cricket and play together as a unit, the better it will be for the team,” he said.The pressure is firmly on Iyer after India failed to win a single white-ball match on the tour of England and Ireland. India lost the two-match T20I series 0-2 to Ireland before suffering a 0-4 defeat against England in the five-match series.
Shreyas Iyer’s T20I batting record against teams
| Opposition | leave | Innings | runes | Highest score | Medium | Strike Rate | 100s | 50s | Ducks | ovens | six |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 4 | 4 | 73 | 53 | 24.33 | 146.00 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 3 |
| Bangladesh | 3 | 3 | 108 | 62 | 54.00 | 183.05 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 8 |
| England | 11 | 10 | 367 | 80* | 45.87 | 150.40 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 32 | 11 |
| Ireland | 2 | 2 | 13 | 10 | 6.50 | 92.85 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| New Zealand | 13 | 11 | 225 | 58* | 25.00 | 124.30 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 14 | 10 |
| South Africa | 8 | 8 | 116 | 40 | 19.33 | 113.72 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 7 |
| Sri Lanka | 9 | 8 | 296 | 74* | 59.20 | 149.49 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 28 | 9 |
| West Indies | 8 | 8 | 137 | 64 | 19.57 | 119.13 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 15 | 3 |
Despite these results, Iyer believes that the difficult phase helped the team to understand what they need to improve.India are scheduled to play a three-match T20I series against Zimbabwe, starting on Thursday. “We had a bad patch in England, but there were a lot of positives out of it. We had to know what we have to build as a team going forward, what kind of presence of mind, awareness and adaptability we need once we go on the field,” said Iyer.
New country, new challenge for Iyer
This is Iyer’s first tour to Zimbabwe and he has never played a T20I in the country before. I admitted that quickly adapting to the conditions would be crucial.“Some of us are playing here for the first time, so the faster we adapt, the better results we will have,” he said.“It is definitely very challenging. We arrived yesterday, today is practice and tomorrow is the match. But it is fun, and if you do well in these situations, you will certainly be happy with yourself. The results did not go our way, but that brought the team closer to each other. We had a lot of discussions about how we are going to play”, as a unit said forward.“It’s a great exposure because you don’t get this often. This is a challenging phase, and the faster you overcome it, the better you become as a team,” said the Indian captain.