Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja Rested for T20Is Against England

Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja have been rested for the upcoming three-match T20I series against England which is scheduled to kick off from 26th January, 2017 at Green Park, Kanpur.

Having living upto the expectations, the dynamic duo of Ashwin and Jadeja had performed exceptionally well in the last 6 months, whether be it Tests or One Day Internationals. During the recently concluded ODI series against England, they had seven wickets between them while their performance with the bat may be questioned by some.

It is rumored that the duo’s replacement, Amit Mishra and Parvez Rasool will be tested in a bid to strengthen Indian spin attack for the upcoming Champions Trophy. Amit Mishra last played for the main team in the ODI series against New Zealand where he took 15 wickets at an average of 14.33, including a five-wicket haul. He has been the second best option for either Ravichandran Ashwin or Ravindra Jadeja, for a long time now and after showing his calibre on many occasions, the leg-spinner’s career always remained on the rocks.

Due to Jadeja and Ashwin’s below par performance in the ODI series against England, this may be the perfect opportunity for Amit Mishra to once again steal the spotlight and remain a constant in the playing eleven rather than sitting on the bench.

Parvez Rasool on the other hand, has played only one game with the ‘big boys’ and that too way back in 2014. The off-spinner debuted in the game against Bangladesh and unfortunately it was his last match with the international team where he took 2 wickets while conceding 60 runs. It was not bad for a debutant and we expect him to flourish under the captaincy of the new skipper Virat Kohli. Interestingly, this will be his debut T20I series too.

Coming back to Ravi Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, we accept that all three venue in the ODI series against England were batting friendly and this may be the reason behind their underperformance with the ball but that’s not an excuse.

Both of them have been playing a lot at home turf and rarely we see the pitches not helping them to bulldoze the opposition. However, the fact that Ashwin and Jadeja tend to struggle on grass pitches, can’t be ignored. While Jadeja managed to stick with the line and length, it is Ravichandran Ashwin who has to focus more on playing out of the subcontinent, because that is where spinners are actually tested.

P.S- Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are undoubtedly the best spinning combination we have seen in modern cricket and they have led India to uncountable victories in all three formats.

India’s T20I Squad for 3 Match Series Against England

Lokesh Rahul, Mandeep Singh, Virat Kohli(c), MS Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Amit Mishra, Parvez Rasool, Yuzvendra Chahal, Manish Pandey, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Nehra.

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23 January 2017
Rohan Jaitly