India vs England - 1st ODI - Preview

After a hard fought victory in the T20I series, the Men in Blue will be looking to continue their juggernaut in the ODIs as well. The match will be played at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune and is set to get underway at 1:30 PM local time.

Advertisment

Even though England are the number one ODI team, they’ll start the series as underdogs. For India, players like Rohit Sharma, Shreyas Iyer, Hardik Pandya are in decent form but one man that’s going to make a massive difference will be Virat Kohli. The Indian skipper was in red hot form in the T20I series. This is probably the first time since 2020 that Kohli has looked so fluent. He gave glimpses of the Kohli we know. When in full flow, he’s unstoppable and will be eager to end his century drought in the series. 

England, on the other hand, will be concerned about their vulnerable middle order. Players like Eoin Morgan, Jonny Bairstow and even Ben Stokes didn’t look comfortable in the T20I series. England’s style of play is more suited for the conditions in England, where the pace and bounce are consistent. On Indian wickets, against Indian spinners, or even Indian pacers, who are more dependent on using cutters and slower ball, it won’t be easy for the English batsmen.

Also, they’d want Jason Roy and Jos Buttler, who failed to convert their starts in the T20I series, to bat for a longer period of time. The loss of Jofra Archer is another massive blow to England who are now over reliant on Mark Wood to get them the initial breakthroughs. Overall, India seems to have all their bases covered while England have a lot of worry about. 

Probable XI India: Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli(C), Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant(wk), Hardik Pandya, Washington Sunder, Shardul Thakur, Bhuveneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal 

Probable XI England: Jason Roy, Jos Buttler(wk), Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Eoin Morgan(C), Moeen Ali, Sam Curran, Matthew Parkinson, Chris Jordan, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood