The last leg of the India-England bilateral series is about to begin - the ODIs! India play the 3 ODIs at Pune against Eoin Morgan's side starting today. Even though there is no significantly big ODI Championship is in the offing this year, the inclusion of these three matches has caused some stir in the cricket ecosystem.
Indian Skipper Virat Kohli, too, didn't seem too impressed with the schedule when he was asked about the importance of playing ODIs when there is not much to extract out of it in the current scenario.
"Scheduling is something that's not in our control, for us each international game is important. It's an opportunity to represent your team and that remains our sole focus. But yes, scheduling is something everyone has to be very aware of, specially in today's day and age where any time restrictions may come in and even in future you might have to continue playing in bubbles. I think it's very important to consider how much cricket you are playing, looking at not only the physical side of it but also the mental side of it," Kohli said ahead of the first ODI.
Kohli also confirmed that it's Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma who will open the batting for India. There had been a lot of speculations about India's opening pair for ODIs following Kohli's initiative to open the batting with Rohit in the last T20I at Motera. However, he insisted that even though the move has worked out, his chances of opening the batting will only be restricted to IPL for the time being.
"Shikhar and Rohit will definitely start. Rohit and I enjoyed batting together and we saw the effects too but there is no guarantee that it's going to be continued in future. But as I said I'm going to open in the IPL to keep all options open. I need to understand my role as an opener so that for a person like Suryakumar Yadav, who is playing the way he is now, and can continue to do so, I should be ready to play the role as the team requires me to," Kohli added.
India have in their ODI ranks our Knights Shubman Gill and Kuldeep Yadav, with the latest addition being that of Prasidh Krishna, our pace sensation. Find below the complete squads for India and England:
India:
Virat Kohli (Captain), Rohit Sharma (vice-captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant (wk), KL Rahul (wk), Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Krunal Pandya, Washington Sundar, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Shardul Thakur.
England:
Eoin Morgan (Captain), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Sam Billings, Jos Buttler, Sam Curran, Tom Curran, Liam Livingstone, Matt Parkinson, Adil Rashid, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, Reece Topley, Mark Wood.
Interesting facts:
- 293:Average 1st innings score in ODIs at Pune is 293.
- 50-50: Team batting 1stand 2nd both have won 2 matches each at Pune in ODIs.
- 2:IND-ENG encounters are 2 matches away from completing 50 matches between them in India.
- 6: Rohit Sharma is 6 sixes away from completing 250 sixes in ODIs.
- 30: Virat Kohli is 30 runs away from becoming the 4thhighest run-getter for India against England in ODIs by surpassing Suresh Raina’s tally of 1208.
- 1: Virat Kohli is also 1 century away from equalling Sachin Tendulkar’s tally of most centuries (20) at home in ODIs.
- 38: Joe Root is 38 runs away from completing 6,000 runs in ODIs.
- 6: Bhuvneshwar Kumar is 6 wickets away from completing 50 wickets in ODIs at home.
- 5: Adil Rashid is 5 wickets away from completing 50 wickets in ODIs against India across formats in international cricket.
