First T20I match between India and West Indies to start today
Having comprehensively beaten West Indies 3-0 in the three-match One Day International (ODI) series, India will head into the T20 series full of confidence.
The first of the three-match T20I series will be played in Kolkata’s Eden Gardens stadium on Wednesday. India will look to emulate their ODI form in the T20 series against the Caribbean team, after their failure to reach the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup held last year.
India have a handful of games to figure out their best playing eleven before the next edition of the tournament in Australia which is scheduled to begin in about eight months' time. Against the West Indians, new skipper Rohit Sharma will look to make tweaks to his team and its approach, in the build-up to next year’s tournament.
On the other hand, West Indies are a fearsome T20 team with hard hitters throughout their playing eleven. The holders of two T20 World Cup titles, however, had a poor batting performance throughout the recently concluded ODI series.
Meanwhile, Indian vice-captain K L Rahul and Axar Patel were on Friday dropped from the squad due to injuries and were replaced by Rituraj Gaikwad and Deepak Hooda.
The T20 squad in full: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Ishan Kishan, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Surya Kumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Venkatesh Iyer, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Ravi Bishnoi, Yuzvendra Chahal, Washington Sundar, Mohd. Siraj, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Avesh Khan, Harshal Patel, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Deepak Hooda.
Notably, the first of the three-match T20I series will be played in Kolkata’s Eden Gardens today. The match will begin at 7.00 pm Indian Standard Time (IST).
The match will be broadcast live on the Star Sports Network, the official broadcaster of the series. It will also be streamed live on the Disney+Hotstar application.
