England v India - Only T20 Preview

Youth is once again the focus of England’s limited over squad with the home side and World 20/20 Champions giving Twenty20 debuts to Alex Hales, Somerset’s Jos Buttler and Durham’s Ben Stoke, led by Stuart Broad, who will be hoping that his improved fortunes can carry over into captaincy  - Or at least improve from the time when he and his team were hammered by nine wickets at Bristol (by Sri Lanka).

Now that Test domination is assured, the focus turns towards dominating all formats of the game like the West Indies when they dominated in the 80s and likewise the Australian side of the 90s. England are world champions in this format thanks to a run of eight straight T20’s before losses to Australia and Sri Lanka. That makes them worthy 8/11 favourites here although with a changed team in all aspects, there’s better value to be found.

Despite many new faces for England, India still make no appeal on the basis that they will field nowhere near their best squad. They have won their last four T20s but Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Ishant Sharma, Zaheer Khan and now Gautam Gambhir are all missing the game, leaving them short in both departments.

Their battling line up reads - Parthiv Patel, Ajinkya Rahane and Rahul Draviduresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and captain MS Dhoni – None of whom are in good touch based on their test series.  RP Singh might well get a bowl after his shocker at the Oval but the biggest boost for India is surely the return of Praveen Kumar, who came out of the 4-0 whitewash with 12 wickets despite having missed a test.

Sachin Tendulkar starts and will be more than motivated to get his 100^th hundred, after a test series full of inconstant knock in which he never truly threated to get to the magic total, Tim Bresnan’s removal of him being more inevitable than anything. The 5/2 about him getting top bat is fair but with their line-up so badly shaken, it could be worth taking a poke at Suresh Raina, top scorer in four of their last eight and likely to come in at 5 according to ESPN, which would leave him with the best chance to score after an experimental top order. 13/2 is big, as Sporting Life’s Dave Tickner has already noted.

While that’s the case, India’s top order looks in no form and their T20 starts – Below 20 against South Africa and the West Indies, with several openers going for low scores in their WC success – they might be worth backing to make under 23 runs between them (before the loss of the 1^st wicket). I was going to go for England to have the highest opening Partnership as well, but they’ve had a few low scores among the openers of late and more appeal lies with Praveen Kumar at 3’s for top bowler. I was going to swerve this on fitness counts but he’s played against Sussex and Leicestershire (one wicket both times) and should be at home in this format and hasn’t got much to go against in this market.

Advice

2 pts India Opening Partnership to make under 23 runs (5/6 SkyBet)

1 pt Suresh Raina top India Batsman (11/2 Bet365)

1 pt Praveen Kumar top India bowler (3/1 general)