Rohit Sharma achieved his 1000 T20I run as captain on Thursday in Southampton during the opening T20I of the three-match series against England.
Rohit, who is captaining the away team in the opening game of the series, seems to have fully recovered from COVID-19. Ishan Kishan got off to a good start at the plate, but Moeen Ali eventually got rid of Rohit for 24 runs off 14 balls, including 5 boundaries.
After Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan too got out for hitting a sweep shot over the short fine leg but was not able to which gave team England and Moeen Ali their second wicket of the day. Deepak Hooda on the other hand is smashing at a strike rate over 200.
Team India won the toss and opted to bat first in the evening moments of England. Skipper Rohit did not follow the pattern of “fielding first” in the T20I format as he chose to attack, considering he himself will be opening the innings.
Indian team welcomes a new debutant as Arshdeep Singh finally gets his Indian cap after travelling for 3 tours with team India. With Rohit back in squad, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, and Rishabh Pant will not be seen in the first T20I.
Team England witnessed a new era from tonight onwards as former skipper Eoin Morgan’s retirement handed over Jos Buttler the responsibility of leading team England.
England (Playing XI): Jason Roy, Jos Buttler(w/c), Dawid Malan, Moeen Ali, Liam Livingstone, Harry Brook, Sam Curran, Chris Jordan, Tymal Mills, Reece Topley, Matthew Parkinson
India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma(c), Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik(w), Axar Patel, Harshal Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal
Jos Buttler: Very proud day, great honour to get to captain your country. I’m looking forward to the challenges ahead. Eoin has been a fantastic captain for a very long time, he has left the team in a great place and now the pressure is on to keep it moving forward. The Test team has been fantastic to watch. Hopefully we can ride that momentum as well. Gleeson, Willey and Salt miss out. We have got a couple of all-rounders in Moeen Ali and Liam Livingstone, they give us a lot of options with both ball and bat.
Rohit Sharma: We are gonna bat first. Looks like a good pitch, decent ground to play. Good pitch, sun is out, better thing to bat first. Recovered pretty well, had a couple of hits before getting into this game. Looking forward to the game as well. We know the scheduling, we got to have the understanding, players will be swapped every now and then. You can create your bench strength as well, a lot of opportunities for guys to come out and play. Exciting times, these guys have been here for a while playing in Ireland and played a couple of games here as well. We are making him (Arshdeep) play. There were a few choices for us, the other guys will have their time. Arshdeep has done well in the IPL, looks an exciting prospect.
