Stain of defeat in captaincy debut itself, Shreyas Iyer becomes part of unwanted club of Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill

New Delhi . The Indian cricket team’s tour of Ireland proceeded with a contrary to expectations. In the first T20 match played in Belfast, host Ireland performed brilliantly and defeated India by 34 runs. This match was not only in the news because of the defeat (Garland), but also a record was registered in the name of the new captain of the Indian team, Shreyas Iyer, which no captain wants to see at the beginning of his career.

Shreyas Iyer was captaining India for the first time in a T20 International but his debut ended in defeat instead of victory. With this, he joined the list of select Indian captains who faced defeat in their first T20 captaincy match. This defeat is also considered big because India’s unbeaten streak in the T20 International series, which had been going on since January 2024, was also broken.

In the match, Ireland, batting first, set a challenging target of 183 runs for India. In reply, Indian batting could not live up to the expectations. Wickets kept falling at regular intervals and the entire team was bundled out for 148 runs in 18.5 overs. The Indian batsmen failed to build big partnerships while the Irish bowlers kept up the pressure. As a result, India had to face defeat by 34 runs.

With this defeat, Shreyas Iyer’s name was added to an unwanted list along with some of the big captains of Indian cricket. Earlier, even Virat Kohli could not register a win in his T20 captaincy debut. In the year 2017, India lost by seven wickets in its first T20 match played against England in Kanpur. Another unique record is registered in the name of Virat. He became the first Indian captain to start his captaincy with a defeat in all three formats, Test, ODI and T20.

In the year 2022, Rishabh Pant got the chance to captain the home T20 series against South Africa. In that match, India had scored a huge score of 211 runs but the bowlers could not defend the target and Pant’s captaincy debut also ended in defeat.

After this, in the year 2024, Shubman Gill got the command of the T20 team for the first time on the Zimbabwe tour. In the first match played in Harare, India lost by 13 runs. However, Gill made a brilliant comeback and won the entire series 4-1 and gave a befitting reply to the critics.

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Now in the year 2026, Shreyas Iyer has also become a part of this list. However, in cricket, one match does not decide the capability of a captain. The Indian team now has a chance to make a comeback in the series and Shreyas Iyer will try to make the team perform better in the next matches and continue the successful start of his captaincy with a win. The Indian team has a strong batting and experienced bowling attack, so there is every hope of a comeback in the next matches.