Brendon McCullum faces a baptism of fire in his first series in charge of the Three Lions’ white-ball team ahead of the five-day T20 series and India v England
India v England: T20 Series Preview, January 2025
McCullum, the man who has helped breathe life into the Test team in two-and-a-half years at the helm, is now under pressure to do something similar with the short-format squad. He gets his first shot at tournament success in next month’s ICC Champions Trophy – a 50-over event – but first up it’s India away in T20 combat and that represents a huge challenge for the New Zealander and his side.
India v England : Bitter Buttler?
Captain Jos Buttler was part of the last England side to play a five-match T20 series in India back in 2021, and that ended in an agonising 3-2 loss. That England side, with Eoin Morgan leading and Buttler behind the stumps, went 2-1 up with two to play but were ground down in the dust by Virat Kohli’s men. A year later England went on to be crowned World T20 champions, a title they would hand on to India last year.
So a five-match battle between the last two T20 world champions, starting in Kolkata on Wednesday, promises to be a thriller. India, lead by hard-hitting middle-order thwacker Suryakumar Yadav (known as Mr.360 because of his ability to clear the ropes all around the ground), are clear favourites to beat an England side they battered by 68 runs in the T20 semis in the Caribbean last summer.
India v England: Big Boundaries
The hope is, unless India’s authorities err towards spinning wickets to give their team an edge, that this series will be electric. The batting power in both teams – Yadav, Sanju Samson, Hardik Pandya and more up against the likes of Buttler, Harry Brook and Liam Livingstone – at small grounds with the ropes in, suggests there will be runs galore.
Last year West Indies and South Africa played a three-match series with an eventual scoring rate of 12.08. The world of T20 had never seen anything like it. The word is India and England – with the right conditions – are ready to go past that and take the game to even scarier heights.
India v England : Hosts Fancied
Certainly India have reached dizzying heights since the old guard left the scene with the T20 World Cup last year. Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Rishabh Pant have handed the baton over to the next generation of fearless ICC-sated competitors. Since that World Cup win, the Indians have gone past 200 on seven occasions in the 11 matches in which they have batted first, establishing a new norm.
The express pace of the likes of Mark Wood and Jofra Archer, England’s sharpest seamers, will keep the Indian heavy hitters on their toes but, of course, if the wickets are true pace is irrelevant; the ball will go miles. The pressure is on both teams in a series which is a mouthwatering one. It’s a new dawn for McCullum and he is confident. But this is India’s back yard where they don’t offer much hope to opponents and should take this one, probably with a 4-1 scoreline.
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