After the rescheduled Test match, India headed into the three-match T20I series against England with a young team led by Rohit Sharma at the Rose Bowl in Southampton, on Thursday (July 7). Rohit handed an international debut to Arshdeep Singh, and the pacer returned the faith with figures of 2/18, including a maiden in his very first international over, and the second of the game in the powerplay.
Hence, after a brilliant match, it will be a blow to Arshdeep that he will not be a part of the second and third T20Is, but will return for the ODIs. This is because the selectors chose to rest veteran pacer Jasprit Bumrah, along with Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer and Ravindra Jadeja. India plays their next two T20Is on July 9 and 10 respectively.
The Punjab Kings (PBKS) pacer, who had an exceptional Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 season., was a part of the Indian squad that toured Ireland ahead of the series but had to wait for his turn in playing XI. He also featured in the two warm-up games against Derbyshire and Northamptonshire.
In the absence of Bumrah, Arshdeep was handed the reins of the pace bowling alongside Bhuvneshwar Kumar. And with England chasing a mammoth total of 199 runs, Arshdeep shouldered a lot of responsibility and responded to the challenge with a lot of grit.
The debutant had a magnificent entry into international cricket, starting off with a maiden over. Opener Jason Roy had no answers to any of the deliveries bowled by the 24-year-old. He bagged his first international wicket of Reece Topley with a slower delivery. Soon after, Matthew Parkinson's wicket fell, dismissed by Deepak Hooda off the bowling of the debutant to help India wrap up the England innings for 148 and win the match comfortably by 50 runs.
Despite missing out on the next two limited-overs matches, Arshdeep will hope to make his ODI debut after being included in the squads for both the England and the West Indies series.
