The best of Asia hurdles in front of the world champions

In international cricket, the England cricket team is now touring India for Test, T20I, and ODI bilateral series. There are 4 Test matches, 5 T20Is, and 3 ODIs in this long 2-month tour. The Test and T20 series have been rolled on the field. India has won both the Test series (3-1) and the T20 series (3-2). The two teams will meet in the first ODI of the series on March 23 at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune. The 2nd and 3rd ODIs of the series will be played at the same venue on March 26 and 28, respectively.

India has won 53 matches and England has won 42 matches, 3 matches have been abandoned and 2 matches have been drawn out of 100 ODIs that have played between these two teams since 1974. Among the ODIs played by these two teams, India’s highest score was 387/5 in Rajkot in 2008 and England’s highest score was 366/8 in Cuttack in 2017. India scored 132/3 at Lord’s in 1975 and England 125 at Jaipur in 2006 which are the lowest team totals facing each other. Former captain MS Dhoni’s 1546 for India and Ian Bell’s 1163 for England are the highest runs by any batsman when these two teams have been confronted. However, among the current players, the most runs have been scored by Indian captain Virat Kohli 1178 and England’s Joe Root 728. Coming to play against each other, the highest wicket-taker for India so far is Ravindra Jadeja (37) and James Anderson (40) for England.

The two teams last met in ODI series was in the 38th match of the group stage of the 2019 World Cup. England won the match by 31 runs. India also lost to England (2-1) in the three-match ODI series that was played between these two teams in July 2018. However, both England and India have played their last 3-match ODI series against Australia, where both the teams (2-1) lost the series to Aussies.

So, after winning the Test and T20I series, the Indian players have an abundance of confidence even though England is a bit ahead in the ODI series in terms of statistics. Moreover, this time the Indians are going to play on home soil. They must try their best to make the series a memorable one.

Note that England is in the 1st position in the ICC ODI rankings and India is in the 2nd position. So England will have to work hard in this series to retain the top spot in the points table.

ODI Squad:
India – Virat Kohli (captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer, Rohit Sharma (vice-captain), Shubman Gill, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Washington Sundar, Krunal Pandya, Rishabh Pant (wk), KL Rahul (wk), Yuzvendra Chahal, T Natarajan, Prasidh Krishna, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar

England – Eoin Morgan (captain), Jason Roy, Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Sam Curran, Ben Stokes, Tom Curran, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Jos Buttler (wk), Sam Billings (wk), Matthew Parkinson, Reece Topley, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood

ODI match schedule for India and England:
1st ODI – 23rd March, Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium (Pune), 14:00 (GMT+6)
2nd ODI – 26th March, Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium (Pune), 14:00 (GMT+6)
3rd ODI – 28th March, Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium (Pune), 14:00 (GMT+6)

The world champions are ready to take the challenge against the mighty Men In Blue. Predict the winner between them & play on Baji!