KOLKATA: India captain Suryakumar Yadav won the toss and opted to bowl first in the opening T20 International against England here on Wednesday.

Senior pacer Mohammed Shami surprisingly missed out of the India eleven. His India return in 14 months after playing in the ODI World Cup final loss to Australia in November 2023 due to an ankle injury was on the cards.

"A good headache (playing XI selection), we want to stick to our strengths," Yadav said.

"We want to bowl first. The wicket looks sticky, there will be dew later on. It will be heavier later on.

"The preparations have been good, looking forward to this series. It's going to be great competition between both the sides."

The Teams:

India: Suryakumar Yadav (c), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (w), Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakravarthy.

England: Jos Buttler (c), Ben Duckett, Philip Salt (w), Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone, Jacob Bethell, Jamie Overton, Gus Atkinson, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood.