India keen to make amends against England

Teams meet in opening ODI of 5-match series today.

After defeating India 2-1 in Tests and drawing the Twenty20 series a few weeks ago, England will now be up against the hosts once again as the One-Day International (ODI) series begins today.

The tourists will come on the field without some of their top players including Jonathan Trott, Graeme Swann and James Anderson while injured Stuart Broad is likely to be available for only the last two matches of the five-match series. England captain Alastair Cook admitted that it would take a lot of hard work and determination for his inexperienced side to secure a win that would only be their second ODI victory on Indian soil. Their last two attempts, in 2011 and 2008, ended in 5-0 defeats and the team has suffered successive warm-up defeats to India A and Delhi ahead of the opener.

“Clearly we are the underdogs in this series,” said Cook. “But, if you look through our side, we have a lot of firepower and world-class players. For us to win the series everyone in our squad is going to have to play out of our skin.”



Meanwhile, it will also be a crucial series for India who need to win after a string of defeats at home. Their batting weakness exposed in the ODI series against Pakistan, the hosts have decided to leave out off-colour opener Virender Sehwag and have called up in-form Cheteshwar Pujara. Amid calls for his removal from captaincy, Mahendra Singh Dhoni said it was important for each member of the team to keep believing in themselves.

“We’ll have to wait and watch,” said Dhoni. “It’s not something that’s on my mind right now, before the start of an important series. We can’t be thinking about that now.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2013.