After a dominant seven-wicket win in the first T20I, India will look to build on the momentum as they take on England in the second T20I of the five-match series at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Saturday.

All eyes will be on star pacer Mohammed Shami, who was surprisingly left out of the Playing XI from the opening match. It is expected that Shami will feature in the second match, as the team management will want to assess his fitness ahead of the upcoming ICC Champions Trophy.

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In that scenario, leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi could likely make way for Shami, with the team fielding two specialist pacers in the playing XI for this match. Arshdeep Singh was the sole pacer in the first match, with Hardik Pandya sharing the new ball.

Also, given Chennai’s traditionally spin-friendly conditions, it’s possible that local lad Washington Sundar may come into the team, replacing Nitish Kumar Reddy. While T20 matches in Chennai often present a challenge due to the nature of the track, there is still the possibility of a batting-friendly wicket, especially given the early phases of the Indian Premier League, where pitches tended to favour batters.

Considering the assistance from the Chepauk track, the onus will be on Indian spinners, who managed to expose England’s spin frailties in Kolkata to skittle the tourists out for 132 despite skipper Jos Buttler scoring more than half the total with 68 runs. Varun Chakravarthy and Axar Patel claimed five of the 10 English wickets, exposing the tourists’ vulnerabilities against spin.

Carse to replace Atkinson in Chennai

Meanwhile, England have already announced their Playing XI for the second game, with pacer Brydon Carse replacing Gus Atkinson as the lone change.

In the series opener, the 27-year-old Atkinson scored just 2 off 13 balls and endured a miserable day with the ball, conceding a staggering 38 runs in his two overs. He didn’t finish his full quota of four overs as Abhishek Sharma’s 34-ball 79 sealed the victory for India with 43 balls to spare.

Carse has played 4 games for England and has picked up just 6 wickets in his T20I career and is yet to play a match in India. However, Carse has a stunning average of 15.33 and an economy rate of 7.66 in the 4 matches he has played so far.

Additionally, the visitors also added wicket-keeper Jamie Smith to the 12-player squad. Smith’s addition was fuelled by doubts over Jacob Bethell’s participation in the match. Bethell, who scored 7 off 14 balls in Kolkata, missed the pre-match training session on Friday due to an illness, according to reports in British media.

Smith has made a great start to his career for England in Tests and ODIs and was added to the touring squad after Buttler relinquished wicketkeeping duties ahead of the series. In case, Bethell fails to recover in time, Smith could be in line to make his T20I debut on Saturday.

Buttler had on Wednesday suggested they will assess conditions for the upcoming games of the series. “We want to be aggressive and watchable, but venue to venue got to assess conditions. Enjoyment of the game is always there, I’m enjoying the environment,” Buttler said in the post-match interaction.

Squads:

India: Suryakumar Yadav (c), Axar Patel (vc), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammad Shami, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Washington Sundar, Dhruv Jurel (wk)

England: Ben Duckett, Philip Salt (wk), Jos Buttler (c), Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone, Jacob Bethell, Jamie Overton, Gus Atkinson, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood, Saqib Mahmood, Brydon Carse, Jamie Smith, Rehan Ahmed