IND vs ENG: Former cricketers criticise Suryakumar Yadav and Gautam Gambhir for team selection in 1st T20I

Suryakumar Yadav-led Team India is back in action as they are taking on England in the first T20I of the five-match series. The hosts won the toss and asked England to bat first. The T20I series opener saw a lot of shortest-format specialists making it to the playing XI of India in the first T20I against England.

Meanwhile, former England cricketer Nick Knight and former India batter Abhinav Mukund didn’t look happy with the team selection by India skipper Suyakumar Yadav and head coach Gautam Gambhir. Both the former players were left quite shocked after not seeing the name of the veteran pacer Mohammad Shami from the first T20I’s playing XI.

Everyone, including Nick Knight and Abhinav Mukund, was in a hope to see Shami in action after a long time since the veteran pacer was on an injury break.

“I am surprised with the call as Mohammed Shami looks fit and hungry to go. He would have been handy over here in Kolkata, but it seems they want to rest him from the first game. The management is more interested in the spinners,” said Nick Knight on Star Sports.

I was expecting to see him today - Abhinav Mukund 

Besides him, Mukund also looked unhappy with the omission of Shami from the T20I series opener. He was expecting the star pacer to be a part of India’s playing XI.

“Even I am surprised that Mohammed Shami is not playing. He is back in the side after a long break and I was expecting to see him today,” said Abhinav Mukund.

However, the performance of the Indian team in the first T20I against England is proving this criticism quite wrong as they are completely dominating the tourists in the ongoing fixture.

Indian bowlers bundled out England at the score of just 132 runs in 20 overs. It was only the English skipper Jos Buttler who played a ‘struggled’ knock of 68 runs off 44 balls. Varun Chakravarthy scalped 3 wickets, alongside two wickets each picked by Arshdeep Singh, Hardik Pandya, and Axar Patel. 
At the time of filling this, India had scored 111 runs for the loss of 2 wickets in just 10.3 overs, with Abhishek Sharma there in the middle at the blistering score of 71 runs off just 29 balls, alongside number four batter Tilak Varma.