5 Players to watch out for from the India England T20I series

The ODI series is over and it is time for the final leg of England’s long tour of India, which began with the Test matches in November 2016 at Rajkot. The visitors have lost both the Tests and the ODIs and will now look to end their time in India on a high.

Here are 5 players to watch out for from the series:

5.Jason Roy

In the absence of Alex Hales, Jason Roy will be the man on whom Eoin Morgan will be banking on to provide the team with a good start at the top of the order. The 26-year-old Durban- born right-hander has a T20I Strike-Rate of 128 and will come into the series with some good form under hi belt, having made a fifty plus score in each of the three ODIs against India.

Prior to coming to India, Roy was part of the Sydney Sixers team in the Big Bash League, but did not have the best of times with the franchise, making a mere 92 runs in 4 matches.

He now has a chance to put on a better showing in England colours, when the T20I series begins in Kanpur on Republic Day.

4.Suresh Raina

Suresh Raina will be the first to admit that his career at the moment stands on the crossroads. Dropped from three of the last four ODI squads and picked only for the shortest format and Kedar Jadhav’s exploits in the recently concluded series means that the 30-year-old now needs to do something extraordinary to be picked for the 50-over format once again.

However, in the shortest format, Raina has shown that he has it in him to put in consistent performances and he will hold the key in the middle order along with Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni.

Raina has a T20I Strike-Rate of 132, but the most important question if he does play is his position in the batting order. Ideally, a player like Raina would want as many overs as possible, but with the top 3 settled, that looks difficult.

Wherever he bats in the line-up, Raina will have an important role to play and it would be interesting to see if he can deliver if given the chance.

3.Ben Stokes

Every team in the T20 format wishes to have multi-dimensional players. England in that regard are lucky to have someone like Ben Stokes, who can be very effective both with bat and ball.Stokes has a Batting Strike-rate of 143 and will be a key member of the lower middle-order, along with Eoin Morgan and Jos Buttler.

While an economy rate of 9.25 is a bit too high for any kind of bowler, Stokes will still be someone who would be relied upon by Morgan and co. and it will be interesting to see the phase of the game where he is used with the ball.

2.Parvez Rasool

Keeping in mind the resumption of the Test season post the T20I series, the selection committee decided to give a break to R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. Replacing the former in the team will Parvez Rasool, who last played for India in 2014.

The selection of Rasool is a bit strange considering that the likes of Shahbaz Nadeem and Kuldeep Yadav have been doing very well for their respective domestic sides.

But Rasool was picked ahead of both of them and it will now be up to him to justify the choice and deliver when he is given the chance in any or all of the three matches against England.

1.Rishabh Pant

When the teams for the limited-overs leg of the series vs England was revealed, one of the players who had everyone buzzing was that of Rishabh Pant, who was picked in the T20I squad.

Pant has had a superb season with that bat having made 972 runs in 8 matches, including a triple hundred and keeping in mind that finding a successor for MS Dhoni as a wicket-keeper in the limited overs side was required, the selectors decided to blood the young man into the squad.

Now it will be up to him to repay that faith shown on him and the Indian cricketing fraternity will be watching him very closely.