India players and staff were magnanimous in defeat after England beat them by 26 runs in Rajkot to bring their T20I series back to 2-1 on Tuesday.

Varun Chakravarty claimed five wickets for just 24 runs in a Man-of-the-Match performance to restrict England to 171-9, with the tourists having earlier been 127-8.

But despite the pitch appearing to favour batsmen, it wasn't enough to defy an inspired bowling performance from the visitors.

The performance of Adil Rashid in particular was cited as keeping India's score down – they finished on just 145-9.

The spinner finished on 1-15 over four overs, while Jamie Overton claimed a team-best 3-24 to ensure England allowed India as few inroads as possible.

That was something that was appreciated by coach Ravi Shastri, who singled out Rashid in particular for praise when speaking to TNT Sports after the match.

"Full marks to England for the way they bowled," he said.

"They attacked the stumps and went for yorkers, while Adil Rashid is like red wine, he gets better and better.

"England have still not played to their potential with the bat. If they do, we could have a crackerjack couple of games."

The praise for Rashid was echoed by India captain Suryakumar Yadav, who suggested they had missed an opportunity having got England to 127-8.

"Credit goes to Adil. I think he bowled really well in his overs," said Yadav.

"We wanted to rotate the strike and he didn't let us… that's why he's a world-class bowler. That's something for us to learn and take forward.

"When we were bowling, we had them 127-8 and they got 171. That was too much at the end.

"And from a batting point of view we've got to go back to the drawing board and see how we can be better."

The fourth T20I will take place in Maharashtra on Friday.