T20 World Cup: India to play England, Australia in warm-up games

India will play two warm-up games against England and Australia before they kick off their T20 World Cup campaign against Pakistan on October 24 at the Dubai International Stadium. The ‘Men in Blue ’will take on England on October 18 before crossing swords with Australia on October 20. India are placed in Group B alongside Pakistan, New Zealand, Afghanistan and two teams from the qualifiers. 

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India have announced the squad for the marquee event. While most of the players who were expected to be in the squad grabbed a spot, there were some surprise inclusions as well. The BCCI brought back ace spinner Ravichandran Ashwin. The off-spinner hasn’t played a T20I for India since 2017. Meanwhile, the board also preferred Rahul Chahar over Yuzvendra Chahal. Veteran opener Shikhar Dhawan was also left out.

Former India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni will join the team as a mentor for the T20 World Cup. After the iconic clash with Pakistan, the Virat Kohli-led side will face New Zealand on October 31 in Dubai. They’ll take on Afghanistan on November 3 in Abu Dhabi before taking on the two qualifying teams in their final two league games on November 5 and 8.

Indian skipper Virat Kohli will step down as T20I skipper after the T20 World Cup thus he will be keen on ending his leadership reigns with an ICC title. Despite reaching knock-outs of as many as four ICC events, Kohli has failed to get India over the line. The T20 World Cup in UAE will present him a good opportunity to end his trophy drought.

India’s squad for T20 World Cup- Virat Kohli (Capt), Rohit Sharma (VC), KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Rahul Chahar, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami.

Standby Players– Shreyas Iyer, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar.