England vs India 2018: 5 reasons why England lost the third T20I

The middle muddle

Too many openers in the middle-order

One of the problems England have with the decision to open with Jos Buttler is that they have too many batsmen who are far better opening the innings than they are in the middle. Alex Hales, Jonny Bairstow are front-line openers and on his comeback T20 for Durham, Stokes scored 90 as an opener as well.

That meant that England don't have too many players who actually prefer playing in the middle overs. That was evident in the third T20I where there was always a sense of anticipation of a boundary anytime the middle order walked out to bat. All of them took time to get into their groove, which hampered their ability to keep the momentum and also meant that eventually when they got out, England didn't get too far.

From No.3 to No.6, Bairstow was the only batsman to have a strike rate of over 150 and that is simply criminal in a small ground where the ball isn't doing a great deal.