For some of India’s biggest guns, however, there may have been a sense of confusing continuity as they remained billeted in the city after the deflating end to that Test, watching the manic scenes unfold around them in the stadium, and waiting for their white-ball colleagues to swing back and link up with them in the Midlands.
England LLWLW (last five completed T20Is, most recent first)
India WWWWW
England (probable): 1 Jason Roy, 2 Jos Buttler (capt & wk), 3 Dawid Malan, 4 Moeen Ali, 5 Liam Livingstone, 6 Harry Brook, 7 Sam Curran, 8 Chris Jordan, 9 David Willey, 10 Richard Gleeson, 11 Matt Parkinson
India, by contrast, are expected to make all manner of changes to their winning line-up – in spite of how impressively their Ageas Bowl line-up met the full-throttle tempo expected of modern T20 line-ups. Neither Deepak Hooda nor Suryakumar Yadav deserves to be benched following their pitch-perfect cameos at Nos. 3 and 4, but one, or both, is bound to make way for the returning Kohli, and conceivably Iyer too. Dinesh Karthik unleashed some lusty late blows on his return to the fray, but Pant’s 203 runs in the Edgbaston Test conceivably trump his impact. That or India may sacrifice a top-order batter to keep both wicketkeepers in the XI. Meanwhile, Axar Patel cedes his spinning allrounder’s berth to the mighty Jadeja. Similarly, Arshdeep Singh let no one down on debut, but Bumrah is waiting in the wings. Rahul Dravid is set to take over as coach once more, after VVS Laxman oversaw the opening match.
India (probable): 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Ishan Kishan, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Suryakumar Yadav / Deepak Hooda / Shreyas Iyer, 5 Rishabh Pant (wk), 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Harshal Patel, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Yuzvendra Chahal, 11 Jasprit Bumrah
Edgbaston has hosted an absolute ton of cricket recently. There have been five bat-first wins out of eight in the Blast this season, where scores batting first have ranged from 101 all out to 228 for 8. Warm, clear weather is anticipated for the duration of the match.
“Not really, to be honest. I think there’s a lot of guys in that team who you know are going to be aggressive and that’s how T20 cricket is played. Everyone has been evolving that style and there’s certainly nobody that I can see over time who thinks it’s a better idea to play more cautiously, so I expect all teams to be positive.”
Jos Buttler was not surprised by India’s attacking intent at the Ageas Bowl
“That’s something Team India is looking at: the way we bat between [overs] 7 and 15. We’re making a conscious effort to put pressure on the bowlers – to try and think of risk as a positive option, not a positive one. It’s one thing trying to have the intent but being consistent with that requires a lot of skill, and the boys are showing it.”
Dinesh Karthik explains India’s new game plan with the bat