India opener Shikhar Dhawan and middle-order batsman Shreyas Iyer have reached Ahmedabad ahead of the T20I series against England scheduled to begin on March 12 at the Narendra Modi Stadium. Both Iyer and Dhawan have been in decent form for the past few matches.
While Iyer scored a couple tons while playing for Mumbai in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, Dhawan scored 153 and followed it with 44 for Delhi in the same tournament.
England are touring India for four Tests, five T20Is and three ODIs. The home side presently leads the Test series 2-1 after beating England in the second and third Tests in Chennai and Ahmedabad respectively.
If the Virat Kohl-led Indian team wins the fourth and final Test or manages to end it in a draw, it will march into the World Test Championship final to be played against New Zealand at Lord’s later this year but if the side suffers a defeat then Australia will play the final against Kane Williamson’s troops. England have already been knocked out of the tournament after losing the third Test.
The T20I squad will see the return of Bhuvneshwar Kumar after injury to the Indian team while Jasprit Bumrah has been rested for the shortest format. Earlier, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan and Rahul Tewatia got maiden call-ups for the T20I fixtures against England.
"I am feeling proud that I am going to represent my country in the coming month. I think I went in the flash where everything from where I started cricket, how my parents supported me, everything started playing in my mind when I got the news yesterday," Suryakumar said earlier.
India T20Is squad: Virat Kohli (Capt), Rohit Sharma (vc), KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Y Chahal, Varun Chakravarthy, Axar Patel, W Sundar, R Tewatia, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Navdeep, Shardul Thakur.