Mohammed Shami has finally returned to the Indian team as he has been selected for the upcoming T20I series versus England. India, however, chose to exclude Rishabh Pant from the team for the series, opting instead for Sanju Samson and Dhruv Jurel as the designated wicketkeepers.
Shami’s most recent appearance for India was in the ODI World Cup final against Australia on November 19, 2023. He would subsequently have surgery following a heel injury sustained during the tournament, which would exclude him from the IPL 2024 and the T20 World Cup last year.
The pacer experienced knee swelling during his rehabilitation, which excluded him from the home Test series against Bangladesh and New Zealand. A side strain in November excluded him from the early part of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, while a knee injury prevented him from traveling to Australia.
Shami returned to the field in the Ranji Trophy for Bengal and then participated in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and Vijay Hazare Trophy, delivering impressive performances with the ball and contributing some valuable innings with the bat too.
A significant missing player from the team was Pant, who last participated in a T20I during the tour of Sri Lanka. Jurel has been included as the second wicketkeeper in the 15-player team, while Samson is anticipated to retain his position in the playing XI at the beginning of the order. Jurel participated in 2 T20 internationals for India while touring Zimbabwe.
INDIA’ SQUAD FOR T20I SERIES VS ENGLAND
Suryakumar Yadav (C), Sanju Samson (wk), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel (vc), Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammad Shami, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Washington Sundar, Dhruv Jurel (wk)
