IND vs ENG 1st T20I Preview: Prospective players need to stand up

ldquoThere is so much of cricket that we donrsquot have any time to reflect In two days we will be talking to you about something entirely differentrdquo head coach Rahul Dravid said referring to the T20I series against England immediately following the defeat in the Edgbaston TestThatrsquos the good part of modernday cricketmdashthere is no time to ponder or brood Barely 48 hours after losing the fifth and deciding Test match from a position of strength Team India are already onto the next challenge a threematch T20I series with the first game scheduled at Ageas Bowl here todayBut there is a difficult part too of modernday cricketmdashthe hectic scheduleThe team management has got around it by resting the players who were part of the fifth and final Test Virat Kohli Shreyas Iyer standin skipper Jasprit Bumrah Ravindra Jadeja and Rishabh Pant are not part of this match and will join the team only from the second game inBirminghamRohit is backThe good news for India is that Rohit Sharma is back as captain and will be there to guide India not only in the T20I series but also in the threematch ODI series to follow The team for the first game is quite inexperienced but has shown a lot of promise winning the two T20I matches against Ireland last week under the leadership of Hardik PandyaWith the T20I World Cup scheduled in Australia later this year the task to pencil in the prospective candidates for the mega event begins here Therefore there will be a lot of focus on younger talent like Ishan Kishan Deepak Hooda and fast bowler Umran Malik Besides players like Suryakumar Yadav and Shreyas Iyer will get the opportunity to showcase their consistency in alien conditionsThe good thing for India is that England too is building a young team under new captain Jos Buttler after Eoin Morgan retired from international cricket recently The home team does not have a single player in the T20 squad from the justconcluded TestAlso Read ICC Test Rankings Rishabh Pant surges to No5 Virat Kohli drops outClear divisionIn fact there is a clear divide between the redball and whiteball teams the only common players being Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow who will be part of the ODI squad In that sense both the teams are in an experimental mode and with an eye on the T20 World Cup are in process of building a young team in the next six months that can be a force to reckon with when the mega event is played Down UnderPoor recordIndia will have to really battle it out here at Ageas Bowl as they do not have a good track record It is the same venue they lost the Test Championship final to New Zealand last summer and have lost all matches they have played against England here That entails three Test matches and two ODIs