India vs England ODI Series Preview

After a fascinating see-sawing T20 series in Ahmedabad, the attention finally turns to the last leg of the English tour, the 3-match ODI series. In terms of context, these three games matter very little in the grand scheme of things given that there are two T20 World Cups for each team to focus on before the 2023 ODI World Cup in India. Nevertheless, there will be some pride at stake and it will be a fascinating encounter between the top two ranked ODI sides in the world.

England will be without their frontline seamer Jofra Archer who will fly home after aggravating a recurring elbow injury in the T20 series. This injury is also a crucial blow to his IPL side Rajasthan Royals as Archer is likely to miss the first half of the tournament which starts on the 9th of April. The other major omission for the visitors is that of Test captain Joe Root who was given time off ahead of a busy English summer.

It will be fascinating to see who England look to use at number 3 in Root’s absence. There has been some talk about Ben Stokes being promoted up the order while Sam Billings is also another name being mentioned after scoring his maiden ODI century against Australia last year. England have also added some new faces to the squad such as Matt Parkinson, Liam Livingstone and Reece Topley who might get a game at some stage in this series as England look to rotate.

India has decided to freshen things up in their ODI set-up as well as Suryakumar Yadav was added to the squad after an impressive outing in the T20 series alongside newcomers Krunal Pandya and Prasidh Krishna. The three of them have been selected in the squad after impressing for their states in the recently concluded Vijay Hazare Trophy. Prasidh Krishna picked up 14 wickets for Karnataka while Pandya Senior and Suryakumar Yadav scored three centuries between them throughout the tournament.

India will be without the injured duo of Mohammed Shami and Ravindra Jadeja for this series as well as Jasprit Bumrah who is still on personal leave.

An interesting battle to watch out for throughout this series will be how India handle the pace of Mark Wood who was particularly effective in short bursts in the T20 series. Virat Kohli will look to build on his superb performances from the T20’s while India will be also hoping that KL Rahul can also return to some kind of form in the middle order.

Predicted XI’s

India: Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Shardul Thakur, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yuzvendra Chahal, T Natarajan

England: Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow, Sam Billings, Eoin Morgan, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Moeen Ali, Sam Curran, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood, Tom Curran