ENG VS IND: Rohit joins Men in Blue ahead of first T20I at Southampton

The Indian skipper was supposed to play the fifth and final rescheduled Test match here at the Edgbaston cricket stadium in Birmingham starting July 1 but could not do so after testing Covid positive

Indian opener Rohit Sharma has joined Team India ahead of their first T20I game against England, which will take place in Southampton on Thursday.

The batter was seen sweating it out in nets.

The Indian skipper was supposed to play the fifth and final rescheduled Test match here at the Edgbaston cricket stadium in Birmingham starting July 1 but could not do so after testing positive for COVID-19 just days before the match.

Rohit Sharma, who was playing in India's ongoing four-day warm-up game against Leicestershire, had gone into quarantine after the report. The 35-year-old was out of isolation after having tested negative for COVID-19.

Rohit is all set to play the first T20I International in Southampton on July 7 but the likes of Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja will be available from the second T20I onwards.

The series will serve as an important platform for the star batter after he had a sub-par Indian Premier League 2022 with Mumbai Indians, in which he could only score 268 runs in 14 games at a sub-par average of 19.14. He could not manage even a single half-century in the tournament, with the best score of 48.

The T20I series between India and England will consist of three T20Is and will start from Thursday onwards.

India's squad for 1st T20I: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Ishan Kishan, Ruturaj Gaekwad, Sanju Samson, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rahul Tripathi, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Hardik Pandya, Venkatesh Iyer, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Umran Malik

India's squad for 2nd and 3rd T20I: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Ishan Kishan, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Shreyas Iyer, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Rishabh Pant (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Avesh Khan, Harshal Patel, Umran Malik.