ENG vs IND: Very unfortunate for Deepak Hooda to miss out in this red hot form, says Irfan Pathan

Former Indian all-rounder Irfan Pathan called Deepak Hooda’s omission from the Indian team for the second T20I against England in Birmingham “very unfortunate” since he has been in a good form with the bat. In the first T20I in Southampton, he batted at number three and scored 33 runs off 17 balls.

The opening combination for the first match was Ishan Kishan and skipper Rohit Sharma; which has also been altered in the second game for India. Rishabh Pant opened in Birmingham along with the India skipper, and Kishan was left out of the playing XI. “Very unfortunate for Deepak Hooda to miss out in this red hot form,” Pathan wrote on Twitter.

Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja back in limited-overs for India

Prior to the T20I series in England, Hooda scored 104 runs off 57 balls and 47* runs off 29 balls, opening the innings, in the two T20Is against Ireland in Dublin. Since his T20I debut in February against Sri Lanka, he has appeared in six matches, scoring 205 runs at an average of 68.33 and a strike rate of 172.26

Hooda also had a good Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 with Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), scoring 451 runs in 15 matches at an average of 32.21 and a strike rate of 136.67. This was also his most prolific IPL season, since making his debut in 2015 in the competition. He was also in the squad for the five-match series against South Africa at home but did not appear in any of the matches.

All-rounder Ravindra Jadeja and star pacer Jasprit Bumrah are back in the blue jerseys, replacing Axar Patel and Arshdeep Singh, for the second T20I against England. England skipper Jos Buttler won the toss and elected to bowl first. India scored 170 for the loss of eight wickets in 20 overs, thanks to a late show by Jadeja, who scored an unbeaten 46 runs off 29 balls.  Rohit contributed at the top with 31 runs off 20 balls but none of the other Indian batters went past the score of 30. The pick of the English bowlers was pacer Richard Gleeson who bagged three wickets for 15 runs in four overs.