India will be keen to make up for the lost opportunity in Rajkot, and bounce back with a win to seal the five-match T20I series when they take on a resurgent England in the fourth T20 International in Pune on Friday.

Sanju Samson’s technical weaknesses against express pace along with Rinku Singh’s dip in form and fitness issues will be the focus areas as India would seek to improve ahead of the Pune match. Suryakumar Yadav’s men won the first two games in Kolkata and Chennai.

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Samson, the maverick keeper-batter from Kerala, who started the T20I season with three hundreds against Bangladesh and South Africa, hasn’t been able to get the desired results in the ongoing series. In the current rubber, he has had scores of 26, 5 and 3 but more than the numbers, the concerning factor is his palpable discomfort against anything bowled above 145 clicks.

Against Bangladesh at home, he faced Taskin Ahmed, Tanzim Hasan Shakib while in South Africa Andile Simelane and Lutho Sipamla were among the bowlers. These are bowlers who fire in between 130 to 140 clicks and can be hit through the line on flat decks.

However, Jofra Archer and Mark Wood are different beasts, bowling between 145 kmph to 155 kmph and that pace is creating problems for Samson. During all three games, the Kerala batter couldn’t even get his bat down as deliveries would thud into Phil Salt’s gloves.

While it is perceived that Samson is one of the batters earmarked for next year’s T20I World Cup, and in that case, he has to iron out his flaws against express pace with the help of head coach Gautam Gambhir and new batting coach Sitanshu Kotak.

The Indian team will also be expecting the return of Rinku, who was out of the last two games due to back spasms. In his absence, Dhruv Jurel came in as a replacement for the No.7 position but he has looked out of place in this particular format unlike Test cricket. But even Rinku, after a glorious start to his T20I career, has gone off the rails.

The Indian middle order hasn’t exactly played England spinner Adil Rashid well so far and with Shivam Dube back in the mix, it will be interesting to see if Gambhir takes a chance with him. The third option is Ramandeep Singh, who also looks exciting as a finisher and is a better seamer than Dube.

In the pace department, Arshdeep Singh will be itching to return to the XI after he made way for Mohammed Shami for the Rajkot match. Shami needs a lot of bowling in match situations and the Rajkot game was a decent restart to his international career without being spectacular.

Squads:

India: Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Tilak Varma, Axar Patel, Hardik Pandya, Washington Sundar, Varun Chakravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Shami, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Rinku Singh, Shivam Dube, Ramandeep Singh, Harshit Rana.

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