Nearly 14 months after he last played an international game, veteran seamer Mohammed Shami on Saturday returned to the Indian team for the upcoming five-match T20I series against visiting England. The 34-year-old Shami’s last outing for India was the 2023 ODI World Cup final against Australia at Ahmedabad on November 19, after which he was out of the team for a long time due to an ankle injury for which he underwent surgery in the UK last year.
Shami’s rehabilitation process was a long and arduous one and a swelling on his knee then prevented him from joining the Indian team for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia, leaving Jasprit Bumrah to shoulder the bulk of the pace bowling load.
Suryakumar Yadav will lead the 15-member team in the series starting in Kolkata on January 22.
It is understood that Shami has been picked because he will also be a part of the Champions Trophy squad and will be gradually working on his bowling load. He is not going to play all five games against England.
From the team that played against South Africa in an away series in November, Ramandeep Singh was replaced by the find of the BGT trophy, Nitish Kumar Reddy, while Avesh Khan and Yash Dayal made way for Shami and Harshit Rana, respectively.
Wicketkeeper Jitesh Sharma was dropped with Dhruv Jurel making the cut. All the players who were picked for the Bangladesh home rubber and South Africa away series have been dropped because the top T20 stars were back then busy with the red-ball season.
The four spinners in the squad are Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Varun Chakravarthy and Washington Sundar.
Incidentally, Shubman Gill, who was made the vice-captain after the last T20 World Cup, hasn’t found a place in the team.
Sanju Samson and Yashasvi Jaiswal will open the innings followed by Tilak Varma and skipper Surya.
Hardik Pandya and Rinku Singh are expected to bat at No. 5 five and No. 6, respectively, and they will be followed by Axar in the batting order.
The two pacers for the first couple of games will be Arshdeep Singh and Shami, with Pandya as the third seamer. The two wrist spinners — Chakravarthy and Bishnoi — will come into the equation to complete the expected playing XI.
The T20I series against England starts with the first T20I in Kolkata on January 22, followed by matches in Chennai (Jan 25), Rajkot (Jan 28), Pune (Jan 31) and Mumbai (Feb 2).
India and England will then face off in a three-match ODI series from February 6.
Team: Suryakumar Yadav (C), Sanju Samson (wk), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel (vc), Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammad Shami, Varun Chakravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Washington Sundar, Dhruv Jurel (wk).
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