India didn’t lose to Ireland and England. It lost to its own excuses

All India could manage was a solitary win in 10 games of England-Ireland tour. (AP) 7 min readJul 25, 2026 08:19 AM IST First published on: Jul 25, 2026 at 08:19 AM IST For a few games during the Ireland-England tour, India had to hide at least four players when fielding – a visibly out-of-shape group, all blessed with exceptional cricketing skills. Even the fitter ones in the team had low energy levels, and their adaptability to the English pitches was unprofessionally slow. The close to 20-odd days that the Indian team got to seamlessly switch from two months of IPL cricket, mostly played on flat tracks, to the lively English-Irish pitches wasn’t enough.