India and England will engage in a series of five T20I matches to be played in the New Sardar Patel Stadium in Motera Ahmedabad, following the final two Tests of the four-match series and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) have announced the squad for the home side for the upcoming T20I series.

The T20I matches will be played on March 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20, with all the matches likely to have 50% crowd in the stadium. This series will also mark the beginning of Indian team’s preparations for the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup 2021, which will also be played in India in October and November.

A lot of new faces were expected to be part of the Indian squad for these five T20I matches, especially the players who had done exceedingly well in the IPL 2020 in UAE, and the selectors have not disappointed.

Surya Kumar Yadav, Rahul Tewatia, Ishan Kishan earned their maiden call-ups to the Indian squad, while Akshar Patel, Rishabh Pant and mystery spinner Varun Chakaravarthy are also picked. Pant and Kishan are the nominated wicket-keepers, which means KL Rahul will not be keeping wickets in this series.

Sanju Samson finds himself out of the squad after a below par series in Australia, Manish Pandey is out with an elbow injury while Jasprit Bumrah has been rested. Mohammad Shami and Ravindra Jadeja are still not fit enough to be back after sustaining fractures in the Tests against Australia.

Rohit Sharma also returns to the squad after missing the T20I series in Australia due to his hamstring injury.

Team India squad for England T20Is: Virat Kohli (Capt), Rohit Sharma (vc), KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Yuzvendra Chahal, Varun Chakaravarthy, Akshar Patel, Washington Sundar, Rahul Tewatia, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur.