India returned to white-ball cricket in style as they defeated England in the first T20I of the five-match series by 7 wickets and 43 balls to spare. The big buzz before the match was surrounding the return of Mohammed Shami, who was picked in the India squad for th first time since the ODI World Cup 2023 final. However, he surprisingly did not make it to the playing XI for the match in Kolkata. Captain Suryakumar Yadav has now finally given a hint on why this decision was taken.

India went in with three spinners in the match- Varun Chakravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, and Axar Patel. On the other hand, they played with just one specialist pacer in Arshdeep Singh, with Hardik Pandya serving as the second pacer.

In the post-match press conference, Suryakumar Yadav stated that India wanted to stick to their strengths, and they also played three spinners in their 3-1 series win against South Africa. Since Hardik took the responsibility with the new ball, India had the extra cushion of playing an extra spinner.

"We wanted to stick to our strengths, we did the same thing when we played in South Africa. Hardik took responsibility for bowling with the new ball. So I had a little bit of cushion to play that extra spinner and all those three are doing a wonderful job," he said.

Mohammed Shami was ruled out for more than a year due to an injury. This injury concern did not seem to die down in the practice session before the 1st T20I, according to a report by PTI.

He left knee was completely strapped up, as he bowled for more than 1.5 hours ahead of the first up. Even though he did not look in discomfort while bowling, he was seen in unease when he was walking up the steps back to the dressing room.

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