Manchester, August 30: India will try to put the humiliating whitewash in the Test series behind them when they take on England in the one—off Twenty20 cricket match here on Wednesday, hoping that their young batting brigade will be able to counter the seaming conditions.
After the Test series debacle, India began well on the path of redemption by scoring three consecutive victories in the warm—up games, but they face an uphill battle against England, who are reigning Twenty20 world champions.
Both Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have looked in good touch in the warm games in the last one week as they shouldered the burden of carrying India home in those games.
Left—handed Parthiv Patel also got into the groove by top scoring in India's win against Leicestershire yesterday.
However, India have run short of batsmen and they are left with no option but to ask its two most senior batsmen, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, to pad up for the game.
The present squad in all has eight batsmen but opener Gautam Gambhir is as good as ruled out and Ajinkya Rahane is not yet ready to be given the India cap.
It brings both Tendulkar and Dravid into the equation - two giant of batsmen in modern era - who, ironically, have only one Twenty20 international between them.
Tendulkar played India's inaugural Twenty20 international match in Johannesburg against South Africa on the 2006 tour, but since then has often asserted he doesn't want to be part of India's Twenty20 group of players.
The highest and the second highest run—scorers in the history of Test cricket, however, would be required to respond to the call of the team. PTI
