After their dominating two-match T20I series against the hosts Ireland, India will now face the real competition in the three-match T20I series against the hosts England. The first one will be played on Tuesday at Old Trafford, Manchester which will begin at 10:00 pm IST (17:30 local time).
The no.4 T20I ranked team England is currently in a great form in the limited-overs cricket. Recently, they beat Australia in the one-off home T20I, after completing a clean-sweep in the five-match home ODI series against Australia.
Though England will miss Ban Stokes in this T20I series along with Chris Woakes, they have enough powerful batting line-up in the squad. Starting from Alex Hales and Jason Roy, the batting line-up continues with the skipper Eoin Morgan, Jos Buttler, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow etc.
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However, the team have a major concern in their bowling as the bowlers are too inconsistent and will surely face a tougher fight against the strong batting line-up Indian side.
Moreover, in the T20I cricket, England is still inconsistent to achieve the success as they have won only four games out of their last 10 T20I matches.
On the other hand, the no.2 T20I ranked team India is very desperate to achieve their success on this England tour. Till the date, India has never won a T20I against England in England as they have lost three out of three encounters against the host side.
However, India is coming on this tour with the six-match T20I unbeaten streak and they have won eight out of their last 10 T20I games. Surely, it will give them a confidence prior to the T20I series.
Coming to the Indian team, their dependable pacer Jasprit Bumrah has been ruled out from this T20I series due to the left-thumb fracture which is a major setback for them. However, India has enough bowlers like Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav etc. who can take the important bowling responsibilities for the team. But, the death-overs bowling is still in concern.
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Maiden international call-earner Deepak Chahar and Krunal Pandya have high possibilities to miss the Tuesday game as they have just reached in England as the replacements.
The batting side is looking good and confident as they have enough experiences and talents to fight even against the good bowling teams. However, Indian skipper Virat Kohli has to take some bold decisions for the playing XI as many in-form batsmen are available in the squad.
Full-member squad for the three-match T20I series
England squad: Eoin Morgan (capt), 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.
India squad: Virat Kohli (capt), 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.
