Several changes have been made to the Indian T20I squad that beat Australia 2-1 on India’s recent tour of Australia. Three players who performed brilliantly in the IPL 2020 season, Mumbai Indians’ batsmen Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan and Rajasthan Royals’ spin-bowling all-rounder Rahul Tewatia, have all been included in the 19-member squad for the five-match series against England set to begin on March 12 in Ahmedabad. The other four games will be played on March 14, 16, 18 and 20.
Brilliant Form in IPL 2020 Rewarded
Yadav has finally been rewarded for the consistent form he has shown playing for Mumbai in domestic cricket in addition to his performance in the last IPL season. On 20 February, Ishan Kishan served up a timely reminder to the Indian selectors when he smashed the Madhya Pradesh bowlers for 173 off 94 balls, with 19 sixes and 11 fours, in a Vijay Hazare Trophy game in Indore. Kishan scored 516 runs in 14 IPL games last season. Kishan also underlined his good form with a score of 60 in the recently concluded T20 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy competition. His Mumbai Indians teammate, Yadav, made 480 runs in 16 matches, while Tewatia who played 14 matches scored 255 runs and grabbed 10 wickets. Tewatia first drew the Indian selectors’ attention in the IPL 2020 when he smashed five sixes in an over from Kings XI’s Sheldon Cottrell to guide Rajasthan Royals to an unlikely win.
Rohit Sharma Returns
Other players to make the squad include Kolkata Knight Riders’ Varun Chakravarthy who was picked for the Australian tour but missed out owing to injury. Kings XI skipper KL Rahul will play as a regular batsman while Pant will keep wickets against England, with Ishan Kishan as the backup keeper. Rohit Sharma, who missed the white ball games in Australia, returns to the squad, replacing Rahul as Virat Kohli’s vice-captain. Axar Patel, who last played in a T20I in 2018, will replace injured left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja.
Many Players Omitted
Players rested for the series include Jasprit Bumrah and Md Shami, the latter still recovering from an injury. Bhuvaneshwar Kumar has recovered from the injury he sustained during the last IPL season and returns to the side after playing matches in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy as well as the Vijay Hazare one-day cricket competition. Two players who were on the tour of Australia, Sanju Samson and Manish Pandey, have been omitted from the squad for the England series. While Pant made 48 runs in 3 T20I matches at 16.00, Pandey scored just 2 runs in the one match he played. Left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav has also been left out.
Complete List of Selected Players
The complete squad is as follows: Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma (v-c), KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant (wk), Axar Patel, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Ishan Kishan (wk), Navdeep Saini, Rahul Tewatia, Shardul Thakur, Varun Chakravarthy, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal.
