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A new era in Indian cricket unfold on 27th July, 2024 as the Indian cricket team take on the Sri Lankan cricket team in the first T20I in Pallekele. This will be the Indian cricket team’s first big outing after being crowned the T20 World Champion after winning the T20 World Cup 2024 in USA and West Indies. This will also mark the beginning of Gautam Gambhir’s era as the head coach of the Indian cricket team.

It has been about a month since Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid led Indian cricket team beat South Africa in a thrilling T20 World Cup 2024 final to be crowned the T20 World Champions again after winning the inaugural edition of the T20 World Cup back in 2007. Team India most recently beat Zimbabwe 4-1 in a 5 match T20I series after being crowned the world champion with mostly rotated squad and NCA (National Cricket Academy) head VVS Laxman serving as the head coach with Gautam Gambhir was still to be announced by then.

Gautam Gambhir’s return to his former team Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for the IPL 2024 as a mentor joining from Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) was filled with success as the former two times IPL winning captain with KKR guided the Kolkata based side to their 3rd IPL success as mentor. Gambhir’s tactical brilliance caught the eyes of the BCCI and brought in the former India opener as the new head coach following opted to not renew his contract after T20 World Cup 2024.

More significant changes will be seen in the Indian cricket team as the trio of captain Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja all decided to retire after winning the T20 World Cup, wanting to end it all on a high. Meanwhile, Suryakumar Yadav has piped Hardik Pandya to become the new T20I captain while Shubman Gill has been named the new vice-captain.

Gautam Gambhir prefered Suryakumar Yadav as Team India’s captain since the beginning the duo played together for KKR and Gambhir had made Suryakumar Yadav the vice-captain of the team despite much having much background then and was fairly young. Hardik Pandya was leading the race to become Team India’s new T20I captain after Rohit Sharma, but after Gambhir’s appointment, things has changed drastically.

Team India’s squad for the series features highly talented new faces with the likes of Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rinku Singh, Ravi Bishnoi, Riyan Parag, Rishabh Pant, Arshdeep Singh and Khaleel Ahmed. Prime pacer Jasprit Bumrah has been rested for the tour to manage his workload. Now that the trio of Rohit, Virat and Jadeja has retired, Bumrah is not in the squad, SKY is going to be captain, let’s take a look at how Team India could field the playing XI on Saturday in the first T20I.

Team India’s Probable Playing XI for 1st T20I vs Sri Lanka

Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant (WK), Suryakumar Yadav (C), Rinku Singh, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube/ Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Ravi Bishnoi.

Team India T20I Squad: Suryakumar Yadav (C), Shubman Gill (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rinku Singh, Riyan Parag, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Khaleel Ahmed, Mohammed Siraj.

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