Rohit Sharma to back KL Rahul over Rishabh Pant; India’s likely XI for 1st England ODI

Following India’s dominant 4-1 series success against England in the T20I series, the spotlight shifts to the ODI series as it will be the last set of matches before the ICC Champions Trophy that begins later this month. This series is important for the men in blue as they look to tweak their strategies before the big contest. For both Gautam Gambhir and Brendon McCullum, who are relatively new in international management in this format, these set of matches will serve as a means to work on their plans. There will also be a lot of focus on the selection of players who will be picked for these matches.

India’s combination is pretty much nailed down as the first four batters alongside two frontline pacers slots are unlikely to change meaning six of the eleven players are set to participate throughout the entire series. The middle order as well as the spin bowling department becomes a question mark, especially, the latter where there are five possible selections in the squad which gives Gambhir a lot of options.

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The line will be initiated by Mohammed Shami and Arshdeep Singh, but the spinners Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar, and Varun Chakravarthy could all be included in different combinations. Among them, it seem most likely that Kuldeep will join the rest of the squad as he recovers from an injury.

Gambhir, for example, could add a little more depth by putting two all-round spinners in the mix, but with Varun’s inclusion in the ODI squad, it suggests that he could be in line for an ODI debut too. The last spot might currently see Axar Patel as the favourite, with his bowling slightly outdoing Jadeja’s at the moment.

Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, and Shreyas Iyer look certain to retain the top four after they ran on all cylinders at the World Cup, but Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, and Hardik Pandya will fight it out for the two slots after. With Hardik’s all round ability and role as the third pacer, he becomes the player that is compulsory in the squad, which means the keepers will fight it out. Now, KL Rahul could consider himself unfortunate, but Rishabh Pant’s ability to accelerate as well as his left-handedness works in his advantage to start with. Its all content provided by 1xbetfair