Having finally tasted victory on the Australian tour team India and its captain Virat Kohli would like to continue the same momentum going into the T20I series which begins with the first game at Manuka Oval, Canberra, the same ground where India defeated Australia on Wednesday.
The Australians though missed out on an opportunity to whitewash the Men in Blue and almost managed it with Glenn Maxwell and his brilliance. If it wasn’t for Jasprit Bumrah’s inch-perfect yorker, It could have been an easy victory for Australia. Having said that, India would be hoping to came a comeback into the Australian summer with the T20 series and the format could not have been more suitable considering the form the contingent has shown for their respective teams in the recently concluded Indian Premier League.
The Australian team in the year 2020 played six games winning three and losing three. The team in opposition, India has an impressive 5-0 score in their favour when it comes to wins and losses. On head to head as well, India fares better than the Kangaroos with 11 victories in 21 games, while their opponents have only 8. When it comes to matches in Australia, even then the Indian team is ahead with 5 games to 3 in the 9 matches played between the two Down Under.
There, however, is one thing that the Indian teams have to be mindful of, and that is the record of the last five games played between the two nations. Australia have won 4 of them while Virat Kohli and his men could muster just one win among the five. In their last and only game at Manuka oval, Australia beat Pakistan quite comprehensively and Steve Smith was the Man of the Match.
Match No. - 1st T20I
Venue: Manuka Oval, Canberra
Broadcast: SonyLIV, Sony Ten Network, DD Sports
Date and Timing: 2nd December, 01:40 pm IST, 08:10 GMT
If the last game was to give any indication, the pitch has something in it for both the batsmen and the bowlers if they hit the right areas. Since it would be a full night affair, the pitch would also remain the same for both sides, with a slight advantage to the team bowling second as indicated from the game yesterday.
The weather at Manuka Oval is predicted to be cricket friendly as the city would have clear skies on Friday. As far as the toss is concerned, it wouldn’t be a bad option to chase considering how close Australia came while chasing that total in the last ODI. In a total 10 T20Is have been played at the venue, five times team batting first have won while 4 times it has been the other way around. So there isn’t much to choose from empirical evidence as well.
The Australian team would have obvious changes in the sense that D’Arcy Short and Mitchell Starc would come into the teams in places of Marnus Labuschagne and Sean Abbot while the rest of the team would most likely remain the same.
Moises Henriques and Cameroon Green along with Maxwell would be the three all-rounders for Australia. If Stoinis attains full fitness, which can only be clarified on the match day, he might replace Henriques.
Aaron Finch(c), D’Arcy Short, Steve Smith, Moises Henriques, Glenn Maxwell, Alex Carey (wk), Cameron Green, Ashton Agar, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Adam Zampa
The Indian team would also likely remain the same barring the obvious two changes of Shubamn Gill and Kuldeep Yadav, both of whom are not part of the T20I setup. In their places, Sanju Samson and Yuzvendra Chahal would be the likely entrants, while the rest of the team would remain constant.
The only surprise that India might throw, would be the inclusion of Manish Pandey, at Shreyas Iyer’s place as he has failed thrice on the tour so far.
Sanju Samson, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli (c), KL Rahul (wk), Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Deepak Chahar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, T. Natarajan
Sanju Samson(wk), Aaron Finch (C), Steve Smith, Virat Kohli, Lokesh Rahul (VC), Glenn Maxwell, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Josh Hazlewood, Adam Zampa, Jasprit Bumrah
Captain: Aaron Finch
Vice-Captain: Lokesh Rahul
India T20I squad: Virat Kohli (c), Shikhar Dhawan, Mayank Agarwal, KL Rahul (wicketkeeper), Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Sanju Samson (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, T Natarajan
Australia T20 Squad: Aaron Finch (c), Sean Abbott, Ashton Agar, Alex Carey , Pat Cummins (vc), Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Moises Henriques, Marnus Labuschagne, Glenn Maxwell, Daniel Sams, D'Arcy Short, Steven Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Andrew Tye, Matthew Wade, Adam Zampa
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