Wednesday 1 February 2017 22:12, UK
Eoin Morgan labelled England’s batting performance as their worst in “a couple of years” after they lost eight wickets for eight runs to lose the third T20I against India.
Needing 203 to win the match, and the series, England were 119-2 in the 14th over before collapsing 127 all out midway through the 17th.
Morgan was the first of those wickets to go down, having hit 40 from 21 balls, with Joe Root (42 from 37 balls) out the next ball and the England captain admitted the double blow was extremely costly.
"It was a fatal error really, losing two 'in' batsmen in one over - especially when we were going so well," he said.
"It really, really hurt us. Then for Chahal to produce that spell of bowling, you've got to give credit where it's due. India put in a performance worthy of winning the series."
With more than 10 an over required from the beginning of England's innings, Morgan felt his side struggled to build the momentum needed to chase down such a significant total.
"In the back-end of the 10 overs we batted, we weren't really at the races," Morgan added. "We could have done with myself or Joe going on and getting 70 or 80... but it wasn't meant to be tonight.
"Tonight's batting performance has been probably our worst in a couple of years. We won't necessarily dwell on it too much."
England coach Trevor Bayliss agreed with Morgan's assessment and believes the failure of England's batsmen to convert good starts into significant scores has cost them during both the one-day and T20I series.
"We really needed someone in our top-order to get a big score and probably throughout the series, and in the one-day series as well, that's where we fell down," he told Sky Sports.
"We only had one century in the ODIs, a lot of 60s and 70s but we to go on and get hundreds and we need players scoring 70 and 80 in big chases like that in T20 cricket."
Bayliss also admitted that England had struggled to put together any complete all-round performances during the tour.
"Our bowlers probably didn't execute as well as we did in the first two games," he said. "But this is only a small ground, the ball flies here and for the first time we didn't get our lines and lengths quite right.
"When you're playing a team as good as India at home, in these conditions, you've really got to put both batting and bowling together. At different times throughout the series we've seemed to bat well or bowl well - and not do quite as well in the other. That's something we'll be working on."
