07 July,2022 07:43 AM IST | Southampton | Santosh Suri
Ishan Kishan
"There is so much of cricket that we don't have any time to reflect. In two days, we will be talking to you about something entirely different," head coach Rahul Dravid said, referring to the T20I series against England immediately following the defeat in the Edgbaston Test.
That's the good part of modern-day cricket - there is no time to ponder or brood. Barely 48 hours after losing the fifth and deciding Test match from a position of strength, Team India are already onto the next challenge, a three-match T20I series, with the first game scheduled at Ageas Bowl here today.
But there is a difficult part too of modern-day cricket - the hectic schedule.
The team management has got around it by resting the players who were part of the fifth and final Test. Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, stand-in skipper Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja and Rishabh Pant are not part of this match and will join the team only from the second game in
Birmingham.
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The good news for India is that Rohit Sharma is back as captain and will be there to guide India not only in the T20I series, but also in the three-match ODI series to follow. The team for the first game is quite inexperienced but has shown a lot of promise, winning the two T20I matches against Ireland last week under the leadership of Hardik Pandya.
With the T20I World Cup scheduled in Australia later this year, the task to pencil in the prospective candidates for the mega event begins here. Therefore, there will be a lot of focus on younger talent like Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda and fast bowler Umran Malik. Besides, players like Suryakumar Yadav and Shreyas Iyer will get the opportunity to showcase their consistency in alien conditions.
The good thing for India is that England too is building a young team under new captain Jos Buttler after Eoin Morgan retired from international cricket recently. The home team does not have a single player in the T20 squad from the just-concluded Test.
Also Read: ICC Test Rankings: Rishabh Pant surges to No.5; Virat Kohli drops out
In fact, there is a clear divide between the red-ball and white-ball teams, the only common players being Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow who will be part of the ODI squad. In that sense, both the teams are in an experimental mode and with an eye on the T20 World Cup are in process of building a young team in the next six months that can be a force to reckon with when the mega event is played Down Under.
India will have to really battle it out here at Ageas Bowl as they do not have a good track record. It is the same venue they lost the Test Championship final to New Zealand last summer and have lost all matches they have played against England here. That entails three Test matches and two ODIs.
