Ahmedabad: After being outplayed in the T20 series opener in Ahmedabad, India will look to claw back in the five-match series as they face England in the second T20I at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday.
It looked like that the Men in Blue were still in the hangover of the Test series win as they had an outing to forget especially their batting which was completely stumbled. Apart from Shreyas Iyer, nobody was able to withstand the prowess of the English bowlers.
The decision of resting Rohit Sharma for the first couple of T20 games seemed to have backfired with Shikhar Dhawan and KL Rahul being unable to put on a solid start in the opening game. Losing a bunch of early wickets put the hosts in a tricky situation which they never really recovered from and that is something they will be aware of this if they want to put up a big score in Sunday’s game.
Skipper Virat Kohli will look to return in his usual form along with Hardik Pandya who has a big role to play in the shortest format of the game. Besides that, the absence of Jasprit Bumrah who took leave for personal reasons was evidently seen which lead to a big miss in the bowling armory.
India might look for change by bringing in a more attacking option in Kuldeep Yadav or Deepak Chahar as they look to stop the free-flowing batting from the visitors.
For England, Jason Roy and Jos Buttler’s swashbuckling 72-run opening stand laid the base for a comfortable win. Johnny Bairstow too returned in form scoring a 17-ball 26. The visitors, after a dismal Test series, sparkled in the first T20I in with their bowlers firing in all cylinders.
Jofra Archer unleashed his fierce form and will hope to replicate the same spearheading the bowling attack once again as they look to build on the win in the first game. There is every chance that England will go for an unchanged side for this game even though they have the likes of Moeen Ali, Sam Billings and Tom Curran in their ranks.
