Former England skipper Michael Vaughan took a sly dig at Brook on X after his another flop show in the ongoing series.

“Is it Smoggy in Rajkot?” he wrote on X, formerly known as X.

India spin great Ravichandran Ashwin, who recently announced his retirement from international cricket last year, replied to Vaughan’s post.

“Just a little,” he added.

Earlier, Brook, ahead of second T20I, placed blame on smog for his team’s struggles against spin bowling.

“Chakravarthy is an exceptionally good bowler,” said the England vice-captain. “He is tough to pick, and actually with the smog the other night, it was a lot harder to pick as well. Hopefully, the air is a bit clearer here and we can see the ball a bit easier,” said Brook

R Ashwin praises Adil Rashid

Ashwin was also in all praise of England’s leg break Adil Rashid for the peach of a delivery he produced to dismiss in-form Tilak Varma.

On the final delivery of the eighth over, Rashid let loose a ripper from his fingers to bamboozle the young southpaw. The veteran ball tweaker tossed up on a length just outside off. Tilak took a step back to create room for himself.

But the ball swirled in the air, gripped once it touched the surface, turned sharply into him to beat the inside edge and crashed into the stumps. With a fist pump in the air, Rashid celebrated a game-changing dismissal.

“Absolute seed. Scrambled seam and serious side spin. Top bowling Adil Rashid,” Ashwin wrote on X while complementing Rashid.

This was the first dismissal for Tilak in five innings in the T20Is. With his rollicking performances, he churned out 336 runs between his last two dismissals.

Meanwhile, chasing the 172-run target, India failed to hold their nerves on the slow track and were restricted to 145/9 in front of Adil Rashid (1/15), Jamie Overton (3/24) and Brydon Carse (2/28) in the middle overs. India had won the first two T20Is in Kolkata and Chennai by seven and two wickets, respectively. Pune will host the fourth match on Friday.