Having clinched a nervy affair in Thursday’s first game of the five-match T20I series against Australia in Visakhapatnam, India will look to seize the momentum with another win in the second T20I, set to be played at the Greenfield International Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday.
A tepid show from the young Indian bowling unit marked by an inconsistent show with the willow are the areas interim coach VVS Laxman and the rest of the backroom staff will be looking to address going into the game.
Captain Suryakumar Yadav, by his own admission, did not get much time to gel with the new look side ahead of the first game, and is expected to have given his team the much-needed pep talk as they await an Australian side, riding high on their recent 50-over World Cup triumph, and raring to roar back into winning ways after narrowly going down by two wickets in the T20I series opener.
The Indian bowling attack barring Mukesh Kumar struggled against the Aussies in the first game, with the pace duo of Arshdeep Singh and Prasidh Krishna along with leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi being milked for plenty, especially from the centurion Josh Inglish. Mukesh, however, kept it tight with his variations and is expected to follow a similar template in Thiruvananthapuram.
On the batting front, India will expect the openers Ruturaj Gaikwad and Yashasvi Jaiswal to provide a blazing start and set the tone for the likes of Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma and Rinku Singh to explode. While Jaiswal got to a start, he failed to convert it into a bigger one in the opener, but all eyes will be on how Ruturaj accomplishes his task to set the tempo. In the first game, Yadav and Kishan provided the impetus after having been forced to steady the ship following the dismissals of the openers inside the powerplay.
With both the experienced batters in Yadav and Kishan in great shape, the team management will expect one of them to last till the end to avert another banana-peel experience, that saw three wickets fall in the final over of the chase on Thursday.
As far as the Kangaroos are concerned, the century from Inglish helped him throw the hat into the ring of keeper-batters that the Aussie selectors might be hunting in the run-up to the T20 World Cup, next June. However, the elevation of Steve Smith as an opener did not fetch the Australians the outcome they would have expected, with the right-hander failing to shift gears. World Cup final hero Travis Head might also be back in the XI replacing Matthew Short, who failed to impress in the opener. Skipper Matthew Wade will also be tempted to get some runs under his belt if he is to stay in contention for a spot in the World Cup squad.
Like India, Australia too will hope that their bowling department rises to the occasion, and might go in for the experienced Adam Zampa in place of rookie Tanveer Sangha, who was hammered at will by the Indian middle order.
After Sunday’s game in Thiruvananthapuram, both sides will move to Guwahati for the third match on Tuesday.