The England team led by Eoin Morgan returned in their first net session at the Brabourne Stadium on Sunday ahead of all the crucial ODI and T20 matches against India.
The entire team, barring key batsman Joe Root, had a three-hour training session in cooler temperatures than they had witnessed during the five-Test rubber in which the visitors were drubbed 4-0 by Virat Kohli’s Indian team.
Nine members of the vanquished Test squad have returned to play under Morgan who was himself not part of the defeated team led by Alastair Cook who is, in turn, not part of the ODI and T20 party.
Root, who has stayed back for personal reasons, is expected to join the squad on January 12, the day the visitors will play their second warm-up game against an India 'A' squad to be led by the fit-again Ajinkya Rahane.
"Root is set to join the team on Thursday and travel with the team to Pune (venue of the first of three ODIs on January 15). He would certainly like to play that game if selected," said a visiting team source after the practice session.
The Englishmen would confront a stronger India ‘A’ side led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who has stepped down as the national limited-overs skipper, but is part of the squad picked to play under new limited over captain Kohli, in the first warm-up game under lights at the same Brabourne Stadium on January 10.
Dhoni would be eager to fine tune his game with there being no opportunities to play even for his state side Jharkhand in the limited overs format with Ranji Trophy going on when England’s Test side was playing against the hosts.
Also in the squad for the warm-up game to be led by Dhoni are his 2011 World Cup-winning squad members — Yuvraj Singh and Ashish Nehra — all of who have been named in the India ODI squad to take on the visitors in the three-match series.
The three ODI matches are to be held in Pune, Cuttack (January 19) and Kolkata (January 22). These would be followed by the three T20I matches the visitors would play against hosts India, in Kanpur (January 26), Nagpur (January 29) and Bengaluru (February 1).
(With inputs from PTI)
