India vs England: Dominic Cork names two Indian youngsters to look forward to against Joe Root & Co.

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February 3, 2021

KEY STORY

Indian cricket team would be high on confidence after clinching the recently-concluded four-match series against Australia 2-1. In the absence of several senior Indian cricketers, including Indian captain Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane & Co. produced one of the most remarkable comebacks in the history of Test cricket to stun the Aussies.
Youngsters played a key role in India’s brilliant show and helped the team register a come-from-behind win against Tim Paine & Co.
Even in the series against England, Indian youngsters are expected to make an impact on home soil. Former England cricketer Dominik Cork picked two of the youngsters to look forward to in the much-awaited series.

“We need to put two younger players into the Indian side. Shubman Gill, who Scott Styris has been banging the drum about Shubman Gill, but what a performance against Australia. He’s obviously a talented cricketer, so I am going to pick him.
Even though Rishabh Pant, I think he’s got a major force to play in this series, especially with that superb innings in the last Test match to win the series against Australia, but for me, I am just gonna go the way Scott Styris wants everybody to go, is Shubman Gill, because he is such a superb young player and England will find it tough to get him out,” Cork said on Star Sports’ show Cricket Connected.
Playing his debut series, Gill proved why is he touted as the ‘next big thing’ in Indian cricket as he batted against Australia’s world-class pace attack with ease while opening the innings with Rohit Sharma.
Pant, meanwhile, was one of the heroes with the bat for India as he played two attacking innings in the third and the fourth Test respectively.

CONCLUSION

While Gill is certain to open against England with Rohit, it would be difficult for the selectors to ignore Pant despite his not-so-impressive record behind the wickets against Indian spinners.
On the other hand, legendary England cricketer Kevin Pietersen opined that it would be interesting to see the dynamics between Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane as the former is set to resume captaincy duties against Root’s men.
“Kohli, Anderson, Ajinkya Rahane, how’s he going to go, being captain in Australia and then coming back and Kohli, how’s that dynamic going to work? It’s going to be a very interesting dynamic. I think that might be, something that is talked about a lot during this series. Then you have got Jofra Archer, can he knock over Pujara?
Bumrah’s back… there are so many different permutations that could happen in this Test series, but I think there’s going to be a very interesting story that’s going to run through this series – Kohli comes back as captain after Ajinkya Rahane was so good in Australia,” Pietersen said.