Wednesday, 31 August 2011

Broad Urges Twenty20 Focus


England captain Stuart Broad has urged his squad to retain the focus of their Test whitewash of India in Wednesday's Twenty20 international at Old Trafford.

"It's a fresh start but it's important we play with the same authority as we did in the Test series," Broad said.

Broad lost his first game as Twenty20 skipper to Sri Lanka in June,but uncapped Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes and Alex Hales have since joined the squad.

Batsman Gautam Gambhir has become the latest plyer on India's injured list.

Gambhir visited a specialist as he was still troubled by the concussion he suffered in dropping a catch in the final Test at The Oval, and was complaining of impaired vision.

He has been advised to rest and will now fly home.

The depleted tourists, who already have hard-hitting batsmen Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh, and bowlers Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma and Harbhajan Singh on the sidelines, were soundly beaten in all four Test matches.

Legendary batsman Sachin Tendulkar has retired from Twenty20 international cricket and with the large number of absentees, veteran Rahul Dravid is poised for a remarkable international debut in the shortest form of the game at the age of 38.

"We don't want to be a batter light, in this format you want your full top seven batsmen which means Rahul will most likely get a chance," said skipper Mahendra Dhoni, who led the team to the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 title in 2007 and the 50-over World Cup earlier this year.

England will also have a some alterations to their side in Manchester, with only five of the team who beat Australia in the final of the 2010 World T20 in the 13-man squad.

Of the debutants Broad said: "I've seen them on television in the hotels when travelling around, so I am well aware of what they can do.

"What has shone about Jos Buttler is he can calmly flick the ball over the keeper's head and next ball hit it straight 20 rows back."

"Stokesy is a strong guy, a big hitter of the ball. He certainly showed his power in training today, while I know Alex well from Notts.

"He's a tall guy, 6ft 5in, and strikes the ball hard. He has an extremely high strike rate in the Twenty20 format and he's done really well in red ball and white ball cricket. He's an exciting talent."

Regarding the heavy defeat on his captaincy debut, he said: "That game didn't go to plan. We didn't get enough runs on the board. If we get the opportunity to bat first we'll have to set a more competitive total.

"We've talked about ways of doing that as a team and it's about players standing up and taking responsibility.

"We learned from the Sri Lanka defeat and as international cricketers it's exciting to have fresh challenges against a strong Indian team.

"I would expect India to come very hard at us. As you would expect they are a world class ODI side. That is something to be aware of but not something for us to worry about because we need to focus on what we do well as an England team. We are T20 World Champions and we need to look at our strengths and stick to them."

After the one-off international the teams contest a five-match 50-over series, starting at Durham on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Kevin Pietersen, who has been left out of that series, is expected to play on Wednesday despite being hit in the neck by a short delivery from Broad in practice.

England (from): Stuart Broad (capt), Ravi Bopara, Tim Bresnan, Jos Buttler, Jade Dernbach, Steven Finn, Alex Hales, Craig Kieswetter (wk), Eoin Morgan, Samit Patel, Kevin Pietersen, Ben Stokes, Graeme Swann.

India (from): Mahendra Dhoni (capt & wk), Varun Aaron, Ravichandran Ashwin, Rahul Dravid, Virat Kohli, Praveen Kumar, Vinay Kumar, Amit Mishra, Munaf Patel, Parthiv Patel, Ajinkya Rahane, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, RP Singh.

Umpires: Rob Bailey and Richard Illingworth

Third umpire: Nigel Llong

Fourth umpire: Michael Gough

Match referee: Jeff Crowe


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