India vs England T20 squad: KKR’s Varun Chakravarthy and MI’s Ishan Kishan get maiden call-up

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Saturday (February 20, 2021) announced India's squad for the upcoming five-match T20I series against England. These matches are scheduled to be played at the Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera in Ahmedabad.

File Photo (BCCI)

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Saturday (February 20, 2021) announced India's squad for the upcoming five-match T20I series against England. The All-India Senior Selection Committee met on Saturday to pick the squad for the matches to be played at the Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera in Ahmedabad.

Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan and Varun Chakravarthy along with all-rounder Rahul Tewatia have earned their maiden call-ups. 

Kishan's name has been added to the squad on a day when the 22-year old kicked-off this year's Vijay Hazare trophy on a commanding note and smashed 173 runs from 94 deliveries. The wicketkeeper-batsman, who opened the innings, smashed 11 sixes and 19 fours during the course of his innings. This is to be noted that Ishan Kishan also topped the chart for Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League 2020 and scored 516 runs in 14 games including four fifties.

Suryakumar Yadav who has also got his maiden India call-up scored 480 runs in 16 IPL matches for the Mumbai franchise. On the other hand, Kolkata Knight Rider's (KKR) spinner Varun Chakravarthy has also been named in the squad besides Rajasthan Royals' Rahul Tewatia. While Chakravarthy took 17 wickets in 13 matches in IPL 13, Tewatia took 10 in 14 matches and also scored 255 runs for Rajasthan.

The T20I series between India and England will begin on March 12 and will conclude with the last encounter on March 20.

India's T20I squad: Virat Kohli (Captain), Rohit Sharma (vice-captain), KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Ishan Kishan (wicket-keeper), Yuzvendra Chahal, Varun Chakravarthy, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Rahul Tewatia, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur