England recently beat an under-strength Australia 6-0 in a series of five ODIs and one T20I, but India are going to be tougher nuts to crack, said Virat Kohli.
India play the first of three T20Is against England at Old Trafford on Tuesday July 3, which will be followed by three ODIs and five Tests.
The next edition of the World T20 is away in 2020, and there’s the World Cup before that in 2019, and both Morgan and Kohli want to use this series to start getting their plans in place. If that means tinkering with the batting order, so be it.
“I think we have to be open to what might be the best combination down the line, I don’t think that making a solid decision and sticking with it for the next two years is productive or healthy,” said Morgan.
“If you’re not involved in the lead-in to the World Cup, it’s very rare you’ll find a guy that comes from a random T20 league and makes his way into the national team. We’re probably a more established side at the moment, with guys who’ve played quite a lot of T20 internationals, we’re lucky for that.”
Kohli, who himself batted at No.6 in the first T20I against Ireland and then opened the innings in the second – failing on both occasions – and shuffled the batting pack up and down in the two games, agreed with Morgan.
“Looking at the World Cup, we will try a lot of players in the shorter formats. The middle order in the ODIs has been something that we have been looking for, so we have a few things that we want to try out and address there as well,” said Kohli.
“This next phase is going to be really important to figure all those things out and have the best balance that we need going into that big tournament. That’s quite far away, but we have a vision for it.”
