After a long wait, for the first time in this Indian tour, England would be a little relaxed knowing that they need to win one out of the remaining two T20s to take back home a trophy. However, they must stick to their plans and English bowlers should lead the charge the way they did in Kanpur.
Eoin Morgan’s good form with the bat has suddenly lifted the morals of the team and that lineup looks extremely good with the power of Jason Roy at the top and the experience and calmness of Morgan and Joe Root in the middle and all of them amidst some runs lately.
India on the other hand have to play two must-win games to clinch the trophy. At Kanpur, Virat felt that the team was 30-35 runs short on that pitch. India must not repeat that mistake. The roles of players must be very well defined and everyone must stick to their roles.
However, the unavailability of Rohit Sharma in the squad due to injury has left the skipper in a dilemma for the choice of opener. Last game, Virat opened himself came as an opener but it didn’t work out pretty well. It would be fascinating to see how he resolves that issue, whether he continues to open or someone else is promoted as an opener.
Indian bowlers too need to step up to the mark and try and identify their limitations and bowl within them to be successful instead of trying too many things and trying too hard. Virat may choose to change bowling combinations depending upon the wicket.
All that and much more to look forward to when India meet England at the VCA Stadium, Nagpur.
Squads
India: Virat Kohli (captain), KL Rahul, Mandeep Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wicketkeeper), Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Rishabh Pant (wicketkeeper), Hardik Pandya, YuzvendraChahal, Manish Pandey, JaspritBumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Amit Mishra, ParvezRasool.
England: Eoin Morgan (captain), Moeen Ali, Jake Ball, Sam Billings, Jos Buttler (wicketkeeper), Liam Dawson, Jonny Bairstow, Chris Jordan, Tymal Mills, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, David Willey.
T20I in Nagpur on January 29 (Sunday) - 7 PM IST