Australia Tour Of India: Should India Stick To Tried & Tested Squad For 2nd T20I?

Highlights:

• Australia tour of India will witness 3 T20I matches
• India Australia is leading the series 1-0 after defeating India in Mohali by 4 wickets
• Bumrah could make a return?

India did not have a great Asia Cup, and entered the T20I series against Australia when Rohit Sharma said he has found the “90-95 per cent” core of his World Cup team but India’s death bowling is in serious trouble.

First India’s lacklustre performance against Sri Lanka in Asia Cup and then against Australia in the first T20I match should send a wake-up call to the Indian skipper and make him rethink his “experiment approach” as the T20 World Cup is fast approaching.

Though India ranks 1^st in ICC T20I ranking and Australia ranks 6^th and India has 3 more head-to-head wins against Australia which stands 13-10, Australia has shown that they are in top form. To stop Australia in its tracks India might have to go back to its tried and tested bowlers Jasprit Bumrah and Deepak Chahar.

Though the practice session was called off owing to the rains on Thursday, however, the Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC), Nagpur, did not issue any warning of heavy rainfall for Friday. The RMC said, “During the evening hours the chances of showers are less likely. Even if it happens, the rainfall will not be for a long duration”.

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Nagpur is offering a bat-first pitch with an average second innings score staying modest at 137 while the average first inning score in T20Is at Jamtha involving India is 164.75.

It would be an interesting match for India given their track record here, having played 4 T20Is here, they have lost the 1^st two – against Sri Lanka on 9^th Dec 2009 by 29 runs and against New Zealand on 15^th March 2016 by 47 runs.

However, India also won the other two games they played – first against England on 29^th Jan 2017 by 5 runs and second against Bangladesh on 10^th Nov 2019 by 30 runs.

Australia made a record after winning the 1^st T20I of the 3-match series by becoming the first team to defeat India in 4 successive T20Is on Indian soil with the following fixtures:

1. On October 10^th 2017 in Guwahati, defeated India by 8 wickets
2. On February 24^th 2019 in Visakhapatnam, defeated India by 3 wickets
3. On February 29^th 2019 in Bengaluru, defeated India by 7 wickets
4. On September 20^th 2022 in Mohali, defeated India by 4 wickets

Possible squad for India and Australia:

India Squad: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul (vc), Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Deepak Hooda, Dinesh Karthik (w), Hardik Pandya, Harshal Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravichandran Ashwin, Rishabh Pant, Suryakumar Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Virat Kohli, and Yuzvendra Chahal.

Australia Squad: Aaron Finch(c), Adam Zampa, Ashton Agar, Cameron Green, Daniel Sams, Glenn Maxwell, Josh Hazlewood, Josh Inglis, Kane Richardson, Matthew Wade (w), Nathan Ellis, Pat Cummins, Sean Abbott, Steven Smith, and Tim David.