Former Indian wicket-keeper bat Dinesh Karthik questioned India’s batting approach after the Men in Blue suffered a nine-wicket loss against England at County Ground, Bristol, on Thursday. After electing to bat first, India could only manage 158 runs on the board.

India’s newly appointed captain Shreyas Iyer was the lone warrior for the team as he scored 80 runs off 49 balls but none of the other batters could show much resistance.

Karthik said India were very cautious in their batting approach against the home team. With this win, England were able to take a 3-0 series lead after four games.

“Just in the fourth game of the series, and the series is done 3-0. You could feel that India were very cautious with their approach. It was Shreyas, who took the score to 159, which definitely looked under par. Harry Brook and Phil Salt absolutely hammered India and took England home in a canter. India were outplayed, outfielded, and definitely annihilated,” Dinesh Karthik said on Cricbuzz.

Karthik highlighted that Indian batters has a problem in adapting to extra bounce.

“I think India have a problem adapting to a little bit of extra bounce. Right now Archer is leading the battle against Vaibhav Suryavanshi 2-0. Ishan Kishan, very circumspect, for the second time in two games, the pull shot not being his friend. Abhishek Sharma, on a pitch where he could have dominated the spinners, got out after not committing to a pull shot,” he added.

Karthik praised Indian skipper Shreyas Iyer, who played a fighting knock to keep his team in the contest.

“India’s lone shining star in this game was their skipper, Shreyas Iyer. It almost felt like he was stamping his authority as a skipper, but whatever he did, it was just not good enough. India lost three wickets in the first seven overs, so Shreyas had to play a bit of a steady kind of role, which he did. He eventually finished with 80, but what was amazing is that if Iyer had not got going, India would have ended up 130-140 for all you know. For a captain who’s under pressure, who has last four games, for him to stand up and say, ‘I need to be counted as a batter’, is a good attitude,” Dinesh Karthik said of the Indian captain.

The fifth T20I between India and England will be played at Rose Bowl, Southampton, on Saturday.