India named their T20I squad with three uncapped players – Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav and Rahul Tewatia – for the upcoming five-match T20I series against England starting on March 12.
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After a thumping Test series win booked a place in the World Test Championship final, the immediate attention turns to the five-match T20I series between India and England in a T20 World Cup year. The trio of uncapped players earned maiden call-ups following stellar performances in the Indian Premier League and in domestic cricket.
While Suryakumar has long been knocking down the door with runs in IPL and domestic cricket, Kishan, the 22-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman, was one of Mumbai Indians’ best batsmen in their title-winning campaign in IPL 2020. Kishan finished with 516 runs at an average of 57.33 and a strike-rate of 145.76 and notably handled pace and spin equally well.
Tewatia’s inclusion adds another spin-bowling all-rounder to a squad that already has Washington Sundar and Axar Patel. Tewatia shone for Rajasthan Royals in the lower middle-order role, famously moving from 17 off 23 balls to hit six sixes in seven balls to take his team to a record run-chase.
From the T20I side that beat Australia in Australia 2-1, Mayank Agarwal, Manish Pandey, Sanju Samson, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami are missing with Bumrah rested and Shami injured. Rohit Sharma returns to the team while there are also notable recalls for Rishabh Pant, Axar Patel and Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Varun Chakravarthy also finds a place in this squad and will likely make his India debut although reports state he failed a fitness test close to the series. Kuldeep Yadav was also left out of the squad named for the series.
India T20I squad for England series
Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma (vc), T Natarajan, KL Rahul, Hardik Pandya, Deepak Chahar, Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur, Yuzvendra Chahal, Varun Chakravarthy, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Rahul Tewatia, Ishan Kishan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Rishabh Pant.
