India vs England: Dad to be Joe Root likely to arrive late for ODI series against MS Dhoni & Co

New Delhi: England's premier batsman Joe Root is likely to arrive late for the limited-overs series against MS Dhoni & Co as he and his partner Carrie Cotterell are expecting their first child.

The flamboyant right-hander is supposed to join the English team, who are scheduled to return to India on Thursday to play the first of two warm-up matches, after few matches.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) are yet to make any official announcement about Root’s delay to join the England side.

The MS Dhoni-led Indian side will take on Eoin Morgan and Co. in a three-match ODI series starting on January 15 in Pune. The ODI series will be followed by three T20s.

Root, 26, is undoubtedly the lynchpin of England’s batting line-up. In the recently concluded five-match Test series which England lost 0-4, he scored 491 runs, including a century in the first match in Rajkot.

The yorkshire batsman has the second best one-day international average of any England player in history, with 45.71 from 78 matches.

He has played mere 78 ODIs where he has scored 3017 runs with eight centuries and 17 half- centuries.