Manchester : Their supremacy in shorter formats is redoubtable but India will have their task cut out against a vastly improved England in the opening T20 International in what will be a defining summer for Virat Kohli and his team.
While India has been a consistent limited overs side during the past decade, England have finally found their mojo in ODIs and T20s, courtesy a group of fantastic limited overs players like Jos Buttler, Jason Roy and Ben Stokes.
With the 2019 ODI World Cup less than 12 months away, there is more than bragging rights at stake as both sides look to fine-tune preparations against an opposition of note.
India are coming into the series with two facile victories over Ireland — by 72 and 143 runs respectively but Kohli knows too well that England will be a different proposition.
What will give him confidence though is the fact that India have won 15 of their last 20 T20 Internationals including the Nidahas Trophy in Sri Lanka and the bilateral away series against South Africa. England are coming into series on the back of 6-0 drubbing of Australia with Buttler, Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow in fantastic form.
Dating back to June 2017, England have won 5 out of 9 T20Is played against South Africa, West Indies, Australia and New Zealand. Therein, they did endure a torrid time in the tri-series against the latter two sides (earlier in March), losing 3 out of 4 games.
For the Men in Blue, the Irish tour was nothing more than a glorified warm-up where all the top order batsmen save Virat Kohli got runs while wrist spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal were again among wickets.
However Jasprit Bumrah’s thumb injury will be a concern as he has played a big role with his death overs bowling. It will be interesting to find whether his replacement Deepak Chahar gets his maiden cap even though senior pro Umesh Yadav looks more likely replacement.
With Hardik Pandya slotting in as the sole all-rounder, his brother Krunal and Chahar will have to wait for their turns. Attention then turns to the middle order, wherein Kohli isn’t looking to make too many changes.
The skipper himself, Raina and MS Dhoni are the backbone of the batting line-up, while Manish Pandey is in running for the fourth spot on account of his good run in international T20 cricket.
Batting late in the order, he boasts of 276 runs in 10 matches at average 92 and strike-rate 127.18. These numbers are hard to ignore.
Additionally, Kohli hinted in Ireland that any permutations in the playing eleven would only be like-for-like changes. In turn, this means Rahul could sit out as back-up opener and Dinesh Karthik is still an understudy for Dhoni, again favouring Pandey’s inclusion ahead of both.
The participation of English players in the IPL has only increased the “warmth” among rival players but on field, India skipper Virat Kohli expects a high intensity battle between both teams. While Jos Buttler stood out amongst the England players in the IPL, Kohli said the league helped them break the ice and know their rivals better. “It [the IPL] is going to make relations between the two teams even better.”
Teams
India: Virat Kohli (c), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Suresh Raina, Manish Pandey, MS Dhoni (wk), Dinesh Karthik, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Hardik Pandya, Siddarth Kaul, Umesh Yadav.
England: Eoin Morgan (c), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Jake Ball, Jos Buttler (wk), Sam Curran, Tom Curran, Alex Hales, Chris Jordan, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, David Willey, Dawid Malan.
Match Starts: 10 pm IST
