Little prep, high stakes: India, England T20I dash begins

India have too often veered between the spectacular and the insipid under their leadership. At the Champions Trophy and T20 World Cup, they lost only one match, but they had their 12-year winning streak in home Test series broken with two whitewashes, and their T20I unbeaten series has just been stopped by a 2-0 blanking from Ireland.

Neither of these teams has the time to sit back and analyse. While India will get just one training session, England will have to squeeze theirs in the afternoon on a day they travel from Nottingham to Durham. Then they turn up on July 1 to start the five-match T20I series, which ironically gets the biggest viewership but least attention from those involved. Whether you take it seriously or not, this series is likely to be the most-watched event of the English summer.

England come into the T20I series with poor recent T20 form vs India – their last 2 meetings were World Cup semi-final losses to India, plus a 4-1 series defeat in India earlier. Despite that, and even with Jasprit Bumrah missing, India remain a strong T20 side.

Bumrah was key in their semi-final where they defended 253 in Mumbai, though England got “too close for comfort.”What to expect this series: Firepower on both sides: Both India and England have explosive batters who can bring back high-scoring games, especially on standard/batting-friendly T20 pitches. Adaptability test: If pitches aren’t flat, it’ll test how well the big hitters from both teams can adjust to tougher conditions.

Bottom line: Recent history favors India, but both teams pack enough batting muscle to make it a run-fest – or we’ll see who handles tricky pitches better.

England's T20I captain Harry Brook was also being groomed as the next Test captain when they overlooked him while Ben Stokes was suspended during the series against New Zealand. He is back as the captain, a vacancy for a full-time Test captain has also opened up, and a series win here will go a long way in removing doubts around him.

The pitch in Chester-Le-Street this year has been a mixed bag in this year's Blast games. Two middling scores have been defended successfully, one has been chased down, but the latest match, a 10-over affair, was 128 plays 130. There is a drizzle around on Wednesday evening.

Probable XI for both teams

England

Phil Salt, Jos Butler (wk), Harry Brook (c), Jacob Bethell, Tom Banton, Sam Curran, Will Jacks, Liam Dawson, Adil Rashid, Luke Wood, Saqib Mahmood

India

Sanju Samson/Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan (wk), Shreyas Iyer (c), Tilak Varma, Suryansh Shedge, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Prince Yadav/Varun Chakravarthy