IND v AUS, 2nd T20I Preview: Wounded Kangaroos aim for vengeance; Kohli's India looks calm and untroubled
The focus shifts to the extreme North-east as Guwahati's Barsapara Stadium makes its International debut on Tuesday.
Not many expected Australia to go down so cheaply in the first T20I against India at Ranchi despite their poor show in the ODIs. Nevertheless, the Indian contingent was in a murderous mood and the poor Kangaroos could do nothing but fall in the spin trap of Kuldeep Yadav. Although rain dictated terms, the administrators in the ACA Barsapara Stadium, Guwahati, boast of having a magnificent drainage system and a complete washout would be really surprising.
Guwahati is the newest entry into the elite list of International Indian stadiums. Previously, the stadium has hosted several Ranji Trophy and other domestic games. This stadium has been particularly assistive to the spinners, but some exceptional fast bowlers like Mohit Sharma and Basil Thampi did really well here.
Australia’s biggest quandary as of now is their middle order’s inability to stick around for a long time. Not one occasion in this entire tour did anyone in that “brilliant on the paper” middle order performed well for the side and this is turning out to be disheartening to the fans. On the other side of the coin, the Indian side looks absolutely flawless and it doesn’t seem as though they’ll make things easy for their opponents.
Toss: Australia won the toss and elected to field
Captains quotes
Virat Kohli: “The pitch looks good to play on, the only thing was the dew factor. We would have bowled first as well. Now we need to make sure we put up good runs on the board. We need to keep the winning momentum going. We don’t want to be complacent. The stadium is beautiful. It’s a packed house. We are playing with the same XI.”
David Warner: “We will bowl first. Looks a good wicket, maybe a little bit soft underneath. Stoinis is playing in place of Christian. Rest of the team remains the same.”
Probable XI
India: Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli(c), Manish Pandey, MS Dhoni(w), Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah
Australia: David Warner(c), Aaron Finch, Glenn Maxwell, Travis Head, Moises Henriques, Marcus Stoinis, Tim Paine(w), Nathan Coulter-Nile, Andrew Tye, Adam Zampa, Jason Behrendorff
Focus will be on
Shikhar Dhawan (India)
The Indian side’s returning ranger, Shikhar Dhawan currently has a lot of things running in his mind. Nevertheless, all he needs to do is score runs and eradicate all the criticism that came in with Rahane getting dropped. The southpaw will have a huge role to play in the game and given he gets a good start and gets the innings up and running, India will mount a huge total on board.
Marcus Stoinis (Australia)
After a lot of drama, Steve Smith’s replacement in the T20 series, Marcus Stoinis has joined the team. Without a shadow of a doubt, he will be straight away roped in and considering a fact that he’s been one of the few brilliant performers from the ODI series, his skipper Warner will be expecting a lot from him. Maxwell might give away his number three position to Stoinis and it’ll be interesting to see how he will cope with the scenario.
Playing combinations
India
Shikhar Dhawan and Ajinkya Rahane will be opening the batting, with skipper Kohli coming in at number 3. In the middle order, there’s an awful lot of talent, promise and stability with the presence of some genuine match winners like Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya and MS Dhoni.
With the ball, Pandya conceded a little too much in his first two overs but recovered well. It’ll be interesting to see if Kohli brings in Nehra or Axar Patel to add more stability. Yet, Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar will be taking the new ball and death overs responsibility with Kuldeep and Chahal taking charge of the middle overs.
Australia
Aaron Finch and David Warner, the two sole warriors of the Aussies this series, will as usual open the innings with Marcus Stoinis probably coming in at 3. Glenn Maxwell Travis Head, Tim Paine and Dan Christian will follow and though they haven’t performed well as yet, they do pose quite a threat.
Jason Behrendorff and Nathan Coulter-Nile are the two specialist bowlers in the format and they need to pick up wickets early in the innings. Andrew Tye is a special exponent of bowling the slower deliveries in the middle overs and the death and he will be assisted by Christian and Stoinis. Adam Zampa once again will be the only spinner.
StatAttack
49 – The ACA Barsapara Stadium will be the 49th stadium in India to host an International game.
7 – India won all of their previous seven games against Australia in T20 Internationals.
36 – Jasprit Bumrah now has 36 T20I wickets, which means he has overtaken his senior compatriot Ashish Nehra as the second highest wicket taker for India in T20Is. Ashwin leads the chart in this department.
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