Such is the condensed international cricket schedule these days, less than 48 hours after the first game ended India and England will meet in the second T20 of the five when the two sides meet in Ahmedabad again on Sunday.
England opened up the series many are calling a dress rehearsal for the World T20 final with a win on Friday and they can take control of the series with another win on Sunday. India will be eager to level things up and set the remaining three matches up nicely.
India
There seems to be something of a trend going on with Indian sides beginning series slowly at the minute. They lost the first Test in Australia before winning it and did the same in the Test series against England last month. They will be hoping lightning strikes for a third time because they dropped the opening game having put in another incredibly below par performance. The good news is they have time to put it right. The bad news is they will need to find a lot of improvement just to be competitive here.
I would imagine in this format of the game India can take losing. It is an unpredictable format but what they won’t be able to take so easily is losing in the manner that they did on Friday when they were outplayed and outclassed from start to finish and at no stage were they ever in the contest. Their top order needs to show more quality and their bowling has to be a lot smarter than it was in that opening game else this could be another long evening.
England
It is very rare for a team who offer up the perfect display in the opening match of the series but that is what England did on Friday. They were brilliant from start to finish. Their quality with the bat and the ball was matched by a smartness in planning to which the Indians had no answer at any stage. The test for England now is to replicate that level, particularly when the time comes in the series to swap personnel around and get game time into everyone.
England had pretty much won the match in the first six overs with the ball. Jofra Archer was the beast he has been in this part of the world in the past, Adil Rashid perfect and everything England did worked perfectly. They were never not going to chase down a grossly below par total but the way they went about destroying the back of the run chase straight away spoke volumes of both their confidence at present and their intent with a World T20 getting ever closer. This was a statement performance.
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Team News
India captain Virat Kohli suggested that Rohit Sharma would get the nod for the start of the series but then strongly hinted in his interview at the toss of the opening game that he is sitting out initially so Shikhar Dhawan may keep his place. India might want an extra seamer in which case Navdeep Saini could come in.
England are likely to bring Moeen Ali into their ranks at some point in the series but whether the pitches have dried up enough for that to happen as early as this match remains to be seen. If not England could be unchanged unless they decide to utilise the left arm angle of Reece Topley.
Betting
I’m a little surprised that England are the outsiders here after such an emphatic performance in the opening game. I get that the dew could be a factor in the second innings if they are bowling but from what we saw on Friday they will be putting up a sizeable total that India might not be able to chase down even if they do get some help from that. The key position England have India in is that this early the home side may need to change from their original plan.
The narrative going into this series was how England would play the Indian spinners and they emphatically answered that question in the opening match and aren’t going to stop there. England won easily with the likes of Eoin Morgan and Ben Stokes not being needed at the crease. They have the better bowling attack, the better captain and much the more powerful batting line up so on the assumption that the dew doesn’t play too much of a role in this game I expect England to win again.
Tips
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