AHMEDABAD : England players wore black armbands in the opening T20I against India in memory of former player
Joey Benjamin, who recently passed away. Former England and Surrey pacer, Benjamin, died earlier this week at the age of 60 after suffering a heart attack.
Benjamin had to wait until he was 27 before breaking into the county game, impressing for Staffordshire and at club level before Warwickshire took him on and gave him his Championship debut in 1988. His brisk pace and ability to swing the ball away from right-handers was noticed by Surrey despite limited opportunities at Edgbaston and he joined the staff at the Kia Oval in 1992, quickly establishing himself as a regular member of the County Championship side.
Coming back to the first match, England won the toss and opted to field first at the
Narendra Modi Stadium
. In a surprise move, India skipper
Virat Kohli announced that
Rohit Sharma will be resting in the first few games.
India will be high on confidence as they earlier defeated England in the four-match Test series 3-1. The T20I series will also serve as great preparation for both sides, given the ICC T20 World Cup is scheduled to be played later this year.
India playing XI: KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli(c), Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant(w),
Hardik Pandya, Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shardul Thakur, Yuzvendra Chahal.
England playing XI: Jason Roy, Jos Buttler(w), Dawid Malan, Jonny Bairstow, Eoin Morgan(c), Ben Stokes, Sam Curran, Jofra Archer, Chris Jordan, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood.