India’s 15 member team for England series declared, pacer Mohammad Shami returns to the squad

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced the 15- member squad for the five match T20 series against England after the board meeting on Saturday. The defending world T20 champions will play the big bi-lateral series of 2025 without stars Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja. Even though, the team hasn’t lost any bi-lateral series after the title win in Barbados.

The highlight of the team is pacer Mohammad Shami who is returning to international cricket arena after 14 months. He was last seen in the Indian jersey in the ODI world cup final in November 2023. He returned to domestic cricket in November 2024. Shami was earlier expected to join the team for BGT but couldn’t because of the swell in his knee.  

The Indian cricket team in T20 sticks on to its attacking game, being able to strike top runs on the scoreboard. Sanju Samson and Tilak Verma have proven key in this, while Arshdeep Singh has been quite impressive with the ball.

After the Border Gavaskar trophy (BGT) series against Australia, key players of the test team including Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubhman Gill and Rishabh Pant have been given rest. Jasprit Bumrah has also not been included in the team as he might miss out the series after the injury he faced in the 5th test against Australia in Sydney. However, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Harshit Rana will play against England in the upcoming T20 series. Dhruv Jurel is the new face in the team, who will be the second keeper behind Samson. He replaces Jitesh Sharma. Also, some other players who were a part of the T20 series against South Africa in November last year have been left out. These are Ramandeep Singh, Yash Dayal, Avesh Khan and Vijaykumar Vyshak.

The whole 15- member squad for five T20s against England is as follows:  

Suryakumar Yadav (C), Sanju Samson (wk), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Verma, Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel (VC), Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammad Shami, Varun Chakravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Washington Sundar, Dhruv Jurel (wk).

England vs India T20 match schedule

England’s tour of India starts from 22nd January 2025, with the first T20 match in Kolkata. The five match T20 series schedule is as follows-

This will be followed by a three match ODI series which will begin from February 6 and will continue till February 12. The ODI team is not announced yet. After this, India will play the Champions trophy that starts from February 19th 2025.