England have first net session ahead of limited over contests

England have first net session ahead of limited over contests

Photo: Twitter, ANI

Mumbai: England, led by limited over specialist Eoin Morgan, had their first net session at the Brabourne Stadium here on Sunday after returning to India at the end of their Christmas and New Year break.

The entire team, barring key batsman Joe Root, had a three-hour training session this morning in cooler temperatures than they had witnessed during the five-Test rubber in which the visitors were drubbed 4-0 by Virat Kohli's Indian team.

Nine members of the vanquished Test squad have returned to play under Morgan who was himself not part of the defeated team led by Alastair Cook who is, in turn, not part of the ODI and T20 party.

Root, who has stayed back for personal reasons, is expected to join the squad here on January 12, the day the visitors will play their second warm-up game against an India A squad to be led by the fit-again Ajinkya Rahane.

"Root is set to join the team on Thursday and travel with the team to Pune (venue of the first of three ODIs on January 15). He would certainly like to play that game if selected," said a visiting team source after the practice session.

The Englishmen would confront a stronger India A side led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who has stepped down as the national limited over skipper but is part of the squad picked to play under new limited over captain Kohli, in the first warm-up game under lights at the same Brabourne Stadium on January 10.

Dhoni would be eager to fine tune his game with there being no opportunities to play even for his state side Jharkhand in the limited overs format with Ranji Trophy going on when England's Test side was playing against the hosts.

Also in the squad for the warm-up game to be led by Dhoni are his 2011 World Cup-winning squad members - Yuvraj Singh and Ashish Nehra - all of who have been named in the India ODI squad to take on the visitors in the three-match series.

The three ODI matches are to be held in Pune, Cuttack (January 19) and Kolkata (January 22). These would be followed by the three T20 matches the visitors would play against hosts India, in Kanpur (January 26), Nagpur (January 29) and Bengaluru (February 1). Morgan is one of the four in the squad who had been busy playing in the T20 Big Bash in Australia before reaching here. The others were David Willey, Jason Roy and Sam Billings.

Alex Hales and Liam Plunkett were also not part of the Test squad that got hammered by India.

England ODI squad: Eoin Morgan (captain), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Jake Ball, Sam Billings (Kent), Jos Buttler Liam Dawson, Alex Hales, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, David Willey and Chris Woakes.

Meanwhile, India A cancelled its scheduled session this afternoon and would have a session in the evening tomorrow.

The India A team for the first game would be managed by selector Jatin Paranjpe, it was learnt.

"The practice is that one senior selector will manage the team. Accordingly Jatin Paranjpe will manage the team for the first match," said a BCCI source.

Another selector, Gagan Khoda, could do the job for the second game, it was learnt.

India A squads for warm-up matches against England:

First match (Jan 10): Shikhar Dhawan, Mandeep Singh, Ambati Rayudu, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni (capt and wk), Hardik Pandya, Sanju Samson, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ashish Nehra, Mohit Sharma, Siddharth Kaul.

Second match (Jan 12): Rishabh Pant, Ajinkya Rahane (capt), Suresh Raina, Deepak Hooda, Ishan Kishan (wk), Sheldon Jackson, Vijay Shankar, Shahbaz Nadeem, Parvez Rasool, Vinay Kumar, Pradeep Sangwan, Ashok Dinda.