Varun Chakraborty (Getty Images)

India captain Shreyas Iyer won the toss and elected to bat first in the opening T20I of the five-match series against England at the Riverside Ground in Chester-le-Street. The visitors have made one notable change from the squad that toured Ireland, with Varun Chakravarthy returning after recovering from a leg injury. Meanwhile, teenage batting sensation Vaibhav Suryavanshi will have to wait for his international debut as India have picked an experienced playing XI comprising three specialist spinners.Speaking after the toss, Iyer said the team has moved on from the disappointing Ireland series and is eager to make a fresh start.Shreyas Iyer (India captain): “We will bat first. This is a great opportunity for us. This is my second series as a captain, I am very excited.” We got what we wanted and yesterday there was a practice session for conditioning. Ireland series is history. There is a good amount of grass on the wicket, so it is difficult to predict how it will play, but our intentions will be high. We are going with three spinners.”England captain Harry Brook admitted that he would have preferred to bowl first but expressed confidence in his team’s balanced lineup.Harry Brook (England captain): “We would have bowled first, but we are happy with the way things have gone. It looks like a good wicket. The mood in the camp is really good and we are excited to start the series. We have a lot of experienced players like Jos Buttler, Phil Salt and Sam Curran who I can always depend on.”England have rested Jofra Archer and Josh Tongue after being involved in the recent Trent Bridge Test, paving the way for Luke Wood and Saqib Mahmood to feature in the opening matches of the series.

playing eleven

England: Phil Salt, Jos Buttler (wk), Harry Brook (c), Jacob Bethel, Tom Banton, Sam Curran, Will Jacks, Liam Dawson, Saqib Mahmood, Adil Rashid, Luke Wood.India: Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper), Shreyas Iyer (captain), Tilak Verma, Shivam Dubey, Axar Patel, Harshit Rana, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakraborty.