Sanju Samson and Dhruv Jurel were named in the Indian cricket team for the five-match T20I series against England starting on January 22.

Samson, who captains the Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League (IPL), has been in red-hot form recently. Last year, Samson became the first cricketer to register three T20I tons in a calendar year.

He smashed a 47-ball 111 against Bangladesh in October before scoring a 50-ball 107 and an unbeaten 109 off 56 against South Africa in the away series.

The 30-year-old batter has scored 810 runs from 37 matches in his T20I career at an average of 27.93 and a strike rate of 155.17. He is also Rajasthan Royals’ top run-scorer in the IPL with 3934 runs from 146 matches.

Dhruv Jurel, also part of the Rajasthan Royals squad for IPL 2025, will return to the Indian T20 setup for the first time since playing his debut series against Zimbabwe last year. He scored an 80 and a 68 in the second unofficial Australia A vs India A Test in Melbourne in November.

Both Sanju Samson and Dhruv Jurel have been named wicket-keepers in the 15-member Indian T20 squad. The team will be led by Suryakumar Yadav with Axar Patel as vice-captain. Mohammad Shami will return to international cricket for the first time since the 2023 ODI World Cup.

The T20I series opener will be played in Kolkata with subsequent matches scheduled to be played in Chennai, Rajkot, Pune and Mumbai.

After the five-match T20I series concludes on February 2, India will also play a three-match ODI series against England. The squad for the ODI series, to be played from February 6 to 12, will be announced later.

Indian T20 squad for 2025 series against England

Indian cricket team: Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Sanju Samson (wicketkeeper), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel (vice-captain), Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammad Shami, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Washington Sundar, Dhruv Jurel (wicketkeeper).