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Pant batting at the top order is a nice move due to his gameplay, just give him 5-6 matches if he fails then others are waiting in line.
Pant will be under a lot of pressure as he needs to perform in the opening slot to get a spot in the T20 format because when Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul returns he wont be having that opening slot to experiment.
Kane Williamson is out injured and he is their best bet to perform consistently and i hope we will see a competitive match than a one sided encounter .
He should be but management must give him a long rope at the top order as it suits his batting in LOIs, for tests he's already one of the best in the middle order but IMO He's pretty much useless in the middle order as far as T-20 is concerned.
If management still treats him as a middle-order batter in the T-20 (to some extent, In ODI it's okay) then it would be good to drop him from the squad. On KL Rahul, well he was an exciting middle-order batter but Sikhar Dhawan's injury in ODI WC gave him a chance and after that, he got f#ucked and he returned the favor by f$cking team India with his batting. He's actually beautiful to watch when on a song but with the kind of bench strength India has for the top-order batters, he doesn't deserve a spot in T-20, even in the squad. Rohit is getting old now and his fitness is bad so not much hope for his T-20 career. In ODI and tests, he still has a future and at least 5-10 more beautiful 100s are waiting for him.
As far as the series is concerned. It's a testing ground for both teams, especially India.