Highlights
- Sanju Samson was just part of the first T20I squad to play against England.
- Samson's last international match was against Ireland.
Sanju Samson was just part of the first T20I squad to play against England but did not find his place in the eleven after a good showing vs Ireland. Samson's last international match was against Ireland where the RR skipper made a brilliant 77 off just 42 deliveries.
There can be two reasons as to why Samson was excluded from the playing 11.
- Poor Performance during the warm-up games: In the two warm-up games vs Derbyshire and Northamptonshire, he scored 38 off 30 and a golden duck respectively. This has been the case with Samson for a while now. Consistency. After every impact performance, Samson dished out these kinds of performances that make you lose trust in him.
- Team combination: In the management's defence, they wouldn't have wanted to play Samson just for one match at a cost of a player that'll be available for the full series. But again, this raises a question as to why was he even selected in the squad to begin with?
As expected, Twitter was on fire after the news of the playing eleven came out. Here are a few reactions.
With almost 3 months left for the T20I World Cup which is scheduled to be played in Australia later this year, India's hunt to put a core group in place will continue during the three T20Is that they are scheduled to play against England. With Eoin Morgan bowing out of international cricket, the leadership duties have now been bestowed upon Jos Buttler and it is expected that the hosts will go out all guns blazing. The visitors have to play out of their skin if they want to clinch the series and emerge victorious against this dominant English side.
India's skipper for all formats Rohit Sharma returned and decided to give Arshdeep his debut cap for India. On his return, skipper Rohit won the toss and decided to bat first.
"We are gonna bat first. Looks like a good wicket. Good pitch, the sun is out, better to bat first. Recovered pretty well, and had a couple of hits before getting into this game. We know the scheduling, we got to have the understanding. We are making him (Arshdeep) play, the other guys will have their chance. Arshdeep has done well in the IPL, and looks an exciting prospect", said Rohit.
However, Buttler, who is taking over as England's white-ball captain after Eoin Morgan didn't look too worried about losing the toss either.
"Very proud day, captaining your country. Eoin has left the team in a great place The Test team has been fantastic to watch. Hopefully, we can ride that momentum. Gleeson, Willey, and Salt miss out We have a couple of all-rounders", said Buttler.
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
