India won the inaugural T20 World Cup but they haven’t been able to get their hands on that prize since then. They head to Australia looking to put an end to their drought. Given that they have what is perceived as the best domestic T20 competition in the world, they are always under pressure to deliver the goods in this tournament. A failed Asia Cup campaign will have done nothing for their confidence but there are enough stars in this India team to make them dangerous.
Profile
Captain: Rohit Sharma
Previous Best: Winners 2007
Best Odds: 7/2 General
Key Players: Suryakumar Yadav & KL Rahul
Group 2 Fixtures
Oct 23 vs Pakistan at Melbourne
Oct 27 vs Netherlands at Sydney
Oct 30 vs South Africa at Perth
Nov 2 vs Bangladesh at Adelaide
Nov 6 vs Zimbabwe at Melbourne
Squad
Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant, Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammad Shami. Standby Players: Mohammed Siraj, Shreyas Iyer, Ravi Bishnoi, Shardul Thakur.
Team Guide
India are always among the favourites for any tournament that they enter and there is always pressure and expectation on them to deliver on that position however their last two outings in tournament play haven’t been particularly convincing. Their T20 World Cup campaign was over before it started a year ago and it wasn’t a whole lot better at the Asia Cup. They will know they have to start this event better at the very least.
India head to Australia needing to sort out their bowling issues. They are carrying two key injuries to Jasprit Bumrah and Ravi Jadeja and they are going to be big losses for them, not just because they are brilliant bowlers in their own right, but also because they have played in Australia many times and know what they are doing there. We know India have the batting to do damage anywhere so their success or otherwise will be determined by their bowlers here.
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Betting
I’m already on Suryakumar Yadav to be the leading batter in the tournament but given all the rain that is around I don’t really want to get on him in the top India market as well for a couple of reasons. It might well be that India are involved in some shortened matches and batting at four isn’t ideal in that situation. If all things are equal though I do think he is the man to beat but I’ll target the India bowling market for a bet on this one.
That market has been thrown upside down with the absences of Ravi Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah and that has left me liking Arshdeep Singh here. We have seen left armers have some real fun in this tournament with the new ball moving about a little bit. Josh Little, Jan Frylinck, Fred Klaassen and Richard Ngarava have all had success in the tournament so far and I fancy Arshdeep can follow suit here. He’ll take the new ball and he’ll bowl at the death and they are the key times for a bowler. He should be a real threat as evidenced by his 19 wickets in 13 T20 internationals in 2022 with a 14.5 strike rate. He looks overpriced at 5/1 to me.
Tips
Back A.Singh Top India Tournament Bowler for a 1/10 stake at 6.00 with Bet365
