Experimentation will come to an end as India prepares to finalise their World Cup squad during a three-match T20 series against an aggressive England, which begins here on Thursday. After missing the fifth Test in Birmingham due to COVID-19, skipper Rohit Sharma will fly to the port city on Wednesday and will likely play in the series opener. From the second game onwards, test players including Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja, Shreyas Iyer, and Rishabh Pant will join the T20 team.

Their absence would offer reserve players like Ruturaj Gaikwad and Sanju Samson one more game to make a mark, even though they appear to have dropped down the pecking order on India’s World Cup probables list.

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Gaikwad was unable to begin with Ishan Kishan in the two games in Ireland due to a niggle, and if Rohit returns, he will have to warm the bench once more. Kishan has done well in his few opportunities, and he will want to reinforce his spot in the team as a reserve opener with a big knock against England.

Deepak Hooda will be looking for another match-winning performance to put himself in a contest with Kohli slated to return at number three from game two.

Hooda’s century and 47 not out against Ireland made it difficult for the team management to keep him out of the starting eleven.

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The uncapped pair of Rahul Tripathi and Arshdeep Singh was left out of the second and third T20s and are unlikely to play on Thursday. Suryakumar Yadav, who returned from injury against Ireland, struggled in the games at Malahide and will be relying on himself to get back to his inventive best. Last week, he and Hooda were among the runs in the warm-up against Derbyshire.

Pacer Umran Malik will be full of confidence after protecting 17 runs in the last over of a high-scoring second T20 against Ireland. He is, however, still a work in progress and needs to improve his precision.

The pacers, especially the seasoned Bhuvneshwar Kumar and the astute Harshal Patel, were surprised by the Irish onslaught. They will have to be at their best against the harder competition.

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Yuzvendra Chahal is anticipated to take Ravi Bishnoi’s position in the starting lineup.

Before the T20 World Cup in Australia in October, India has roughly 15 T20 games to play: three against England in the current series, five against the West Indies (July 29-August 7), about 5 in the Asia Cup (August-September), and three against Australia (September).

The England series will kick off the process of determining the best XI for the big event.

Following the retirement of Eoin Morgan, the series marks the start of the Jos Buttler era in England.

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Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow, the star of the fifth Test against India, have been rested for the series. The England batting line-up, on the other hand, has enough firepower to unsettle the opposition.

Buttler and Liam Livingstone both had lethal IPL performances and will be trying to enhance that.

Squads

England: Jos Buttler (Captain), Moeen Ali, Harry Brook, Sam Curran, Richard Gleeson, Chris Jordan, Liam Livingstone, Dawid Malan, Tymal Mills, Matthew Parkinson, Jason Roy, Phil Salt, Reece Topley and David Willey.

India: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Ishan Kishan, Ruturaj Gaekwad, Sanju Samson, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rahul Tripathi, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Hardik Pandya, Venkatesh Iyer, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Umran Malik.

The match starts at 10:30 pm.