India opt to bowl, make two changes for second T20I; Smith debuts for England

Toss India opt to bowl vs England

Suryakumar Yadav won his second toss of the T20I series against England and decided to do the same. He opted to chase when the dew makes the pitch quicker to bat on if not significant enough to make bowling nightmarish. While he dipped into the box of white new Kookaburras to choose the ball for India’s bowling innings, Mohammed Shami continued to sit on the bench, which means we wait for his international comeback some more.

Both captains, Suryakumar and Jos Buttler, expected the pitch to play better for batting than the one in Kolkata, which offered seam movement and grip at the start of the match. India were forced to make two changes, with Rinku Singh and Nitish Kumar Reddy getting injured. Reddy was ruled out of the series even as Rinku is expected to be fit for the last two matches. India brought in Dhruv Jurel and another spin-bowling allrounder in the Chennai boy Washington Sundar. That made it four spinners in the XI.

England were again left with the challenge of quickly assessing the pitch and then putting on board an above-par total for an India batting line-up that has been on a roll. They made two changes too: Jamie Smith took the spot of the unwell Jacob Bethell, and Brydon Carse came in for Gus Atkinson.

India lead the five-match T20I series 1-0 after a comprehensive win in the first game in Kolkata, where they had chased down 133 with 43 balls remaining.

India: 1 Abhishek Sharma, 2 Sanju Samson (wk), 3 Suryakumar Yadav (capt), 4 Tilak Varma, 5 Hardik Pandya, 6 Dhruv Jurel, 7 Washington Sundar, 8 Axar Patel, 9 Ravi Bishnoi, 10 Arshdeep Singh, 11 Varun Chakravarthy

England: 1 Phil Salt (wk), 2 Ben Duckett, 3 Jos Buttler (capt), 4 Harry Brook, 5 Liam Livingstone, 6 Jamie Smith, 7 Jamie Overton, 8 Brydon Carse, 9 Jofra Archer, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Mark Wood

Sidharth Monga is a senior writer at ESPNcricinfo