Alastair Cook chose to bat in the first international match at the brand new Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot, in the first of five ODIs against India.

England gave batsman Joe Root a debut. Mercurial batsman Kevin Pietersen will return to play his first ODI in almost a year.

India have made just one change from the playing 11 that beat Pakistan in the final ODI of that series: bringing in Ashok Dinda for Shami Ahmed, who had made an impressive debut.

England were seeking to complete an impressive tour of India, having won the Test series 2-1 and drawn the Twenty20 series 1-1 before Christmas.

{niftybox width=550px,background=ivory,textcolor=maroon,float=center,textalign=justify,border=gold,font=Arial,fontsize=12px}

India:
1 Gautam Gambhir, 2 Ajinkya Rahane, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 Suresh Raina, 6 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 R Ashwin, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Ishant Sharma, 11 Ashok Dinda.

England:
1 Alastair Cook (capt), 2 Ian Bell, 3 Kevin Pietersen, 4 Joe Root, 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 Craig Kieswetter (wk), 7 Samit Patel, 8 Tim Bresnan, 9 James Tredwell, 10 Steven Finn, 11 James Dernbach.

{/niftybox}