After whitewashing New Zealand in a three-match ODI series, the Indian team will now face the Black Caps in a three-match T20I series, the first game of which will take place in Ranchi on Friday (January 27). The Indian team landed in the capital city of Jharkhand state on Wednesday, and upon reaching there, the Indian skipper for the shortest format assignment, Hardik Pandya, took some time out to visit MS Dhoni, who lives in the city.
The 29-year-old all-rounder took to Twitter on Thursday morning to share two pictures of him with Dhoni and captioned the post, ‘Sholay 2 coming soon’. In the pictures, Hardik can be seen sitting on the driver’s seat of a motorcycle, while Dhoni is in the side car.
After leading the Indian team against Ireland, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka in the past, Hardik will once again assume the leadership duties of India’s T20I team in the continued absence of regular skipper Rohit Sharma. Rohit, who scored his 30th ODI century on Tuesday (January 24) against New Zealand during the third ODI of a three-match series in Indore, hasn’t played a T20I match for the Men in Blue since the conclusion of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in Australia last year.
There are serious doubts over his future in the T20I arena for India, along with Virat Kohli, who has also been constantly overlooked. But despite the absence of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, India has performed well in the T20Is and will look to continue in the same fashion.
Against New Zealand, the onus will again be on the world’s No. 1 T20I batter, Suryakumar Yadav, who in his last T20I appearance for the Men in Blue scored an unbeaten 112 from 51 balls against Sri Lanka. Aside from him, young opening batter Prithvi Shaw, who returns to the T20I team after a more than 18-month absence, will be one to watch.
