Rahul Tewatia, Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan have earned their maiden India call-ups after being named in the squad for the upcoming five-match T20I series against England.
The trio each starred in the 2020 Indian Premier League. Tewatia made a habit of playing match-changing hands in all three departments, with the most notable coming against Kings XI Punjab. Having been promoted to No.4 in a chase of 224, Tewatia crawled to 17 off 23, coming in for vociferous criticism before smashing six of his next seven balls for six.
Kishan, a 22-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman, has long been one of the most highly rated young batsmen in the country. In Mumbai Indians’ title-winning campaign, he notched 516 runs at an average of 57.33 and a strike-rate of 145.76. No player in the competition averaged more, with a minimum of 250 runs.
Tewatia was a relative unknown before last season, but Suryakumar’s call-up is a reward for years of hard work. The 30-year-old has averaged 30 or more in each of the last three IPL seasons, with 2020 his best campaign yet. He averaged 40 with a strike-rate of 145, but was overlooked for India’s tour of Australia. His reward has now come.
There are several other changes to the squad that beat Australia 2-1. Mayank Agarwal, Manish Pandey, Sanju Samson, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami have all been left out, with Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Axar Patel and Bhuvneshwar Kumar all recalled. Varun Chakravarthy, who was ruled out of the Australia T20Is by India, also finds a place in this squad.
India squad for England T20Is: Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma (vc), KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant , Ishan Kishan, Yuzvendra Chahal, Varun Chakravarthy, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Rahul Tewatia, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur.
