By Karan Agrawal 
India won the five-match T20I series against England 4-1 with a win in the final T20I by a margin of 150 runs, which is India’s second biggest win in terms of runs in T20I. The series witnessed many memorable moments, starting from Arshdeep Singh becoming India’s highest wicket-taker in T20I, followed by Tilak Varma’s cool and composed knock under pressure in the second game in Chennai and Abhishek Sharma’s record-breaking century in the final game in Mumbai.
The Reaction
But the moment that stood out was when Harshit Rana came in as a concussion substitute for Shivam Dube who was hit on the helmet in the fourth T20I in Pune. Harshit Rana who made his debut in T20I after replacing Dube picked up three wickets and won the match for India. Reacting to the concussion substitute controversy India’s head coach Gautam Gambhir said Shivam Dube would have surely bowled his full quota of four overs if the match had gone right down to the wire. “He would have bowled four overs for sure today,” Gambhir laughed while speaking to Star Sports.
The Role
Talking about the role of the Indian spinners in the middle overs Gambhir said “See, for me, having Bishnoi and Varun bowling in tandem was very important, especially in the middle phase. We always knew that the kind of batting line-up England had, they would always come hard at us in the first six overs. But it is the 7-15 that we wanted to control and see if those two wicket-taking options could give us success.”
The Approach
There has been a change in approach in India’s batting in T20 cricket since Gautam Gambhir became India’s head coach in July last year which is evident by the fact that batters have been given the license to play their shots from the first ball without the fear of getting out as a result the Suryaumar Yadav led side played with eight batters and one specialist fast bowler in the series against England.
The Reason
When Gambhir was asked about the team combination the head coach it was a deliberate effort to play with just one specialist fast bowler to stretch the batting till number 8 he said “It is also about having the No. 8 batter, even if he does not face too many balls, because of the kind of cricket that we are playing. We want to go as hard as possible and sometimes that cushion of having that No. 8 would free up the top 7 more.”