India look to youngsters with only T20 lined-up

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MANCHESTER: India will try to put the humiliating whitewash in the Test series behind them when they take on England in the one-off Twenty20 cricket match on Wednesday, hoping that their young batting brigade will be able to counter the seaming conditions.

After the Test series debacle, India began well on the path of redemption by scoring three consecutive victories in the warm-up games but they face an uphill battle against England, who are reigning Twenty20 world champions.

Both Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have looked in good touch in the warm games in the last one week as they shouldered the burden of carrying India home in those games.

Importantly, they have not been part of the losing side yet after putting their feet in England and the confidence and positive attitude of the duo can turn it around for India.

Left-handed Parthiv Patel also got into the groove by top scoring in India's win against Leicestershire on Tuesday.

However, India have run short of batsmen and they are left with no option but to ask its two most senior batsmen, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, to pad up for the game.

The present squad in all has eight batsmen but opener Gautam Gambhir is as good as ruled out and Ajinkya Rahane is too wet behind the ears to be given the India cap.

It brings both Tendulkar and Dravid into equation - two giant of batsmen in modern era who, ironically, have only one Twenty20 international between them.

Tendulkar played India's inaugural Twenty20 international match in Johannesburg against South Africa on the 2006 tour but since then has often asserted he doesn't want to be part of India's Twenty20 group of players.

The highest and the second highest run-scorers in the history of Test cricket, however, would be required to respond to the call of the team.

It's an irony that a team, which only four years ago had won the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa on the vim of young talent, is now knocking at the door of two 38-year-old veterans to bail them out.

Tendulkar and Dravid, in a way, wouldn't mind turning up for India. Tendulkar has only shown glimpses of his batsmanship on the present tour.

Dravid needs to adapt his batting to the shorter formats of the game of which he hasn't been a part, well almost, for over three years.

Being champions, they would also like to exact revenge against an England side which whitewashed them 4-0 in the preceding Test series and disrobed them from the honours of world's number one Test side.