Series on the line as India face Australia in a must-win game

India would be disappointed at their opening day’s efforts against Australia where their vehement attempts at shuffling their bowling avenues ended up being thwacked to the ropes as the visitors chased down a momentous total, posing a handful of serious questions for the hosts.

As the caravan arrives at Nagpur on a humid Friday evening, it won’t be an easy outing for the Men in blue as the T20 World Champions would be hoping to shift gears with the series in sight. However, knowing the Indians, it won’t be a gift to the visitors either.

The Indian batting unit has seemed to be in fine touch in the last couple of games where the Australian and the Afghanistan bowlers were made to look quite pedestrian despite variegated points of attack. However, what has been a major woe for the Indians has been their death bowling and it continues ever since the Asia Cup.

Repeated highlights have been thrown on Bhuvneshwar Kumar who has failed to make a mark in the penultimate over for the last three games out of the four played by India. This would probably be begging a few questions, out of which the most important one will be whether Bumrah will be back in the side after India’s repeated slip-ups in the slog overs despite a strong hold in the middle.

Coming to the Australian outfit, the visitors are now making this a habit of delivering the payload handsomely towards the end of the innings. Riding on a steady start the Australians have managed to exhibit some magnificent fireworks that has left the oppositions startled. Most importantly, they do have the required strength to pull down dynasties, no matter how high they are mounted.

Key Stats:

The top six T20I individual scores in an innings in the Indo-Australia rivalry is being held by players who have plied their trade for the Royal Challengers Bangalore. The list goes - Shane Watson, Glenn Maxwell, Virat Kohli with three big knocks and Aaron Finch.

Virat Kohli leads the list of half-centurions in the Indo-Australian rivalry in the shortest format of the game with 7 fifties.

Sreesanth’s figures of 2 for 12 from his quota of 4 overs against Australia in the 2007 T20 World Cup semi-final is still the most economical spell by any bowler in this rivalry who has completed their full quota of overs.

MS Dhoni leads the long line of keepers to have affected the highest number of dismissals with 15 next to his name that is inclusive of 10 catches and 5 stumpings between India and Australia in the shortest format of the game.

Head-to-head:

Matches played: 24

India: 13

Australia: 10

Match Details:

India vs Australia

VCA Stadium

23rd September

7:00 PM

Squads:

India:

Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Dinesh Karthik (wicket-keeper), Hardik Pandya, R. Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Harshal Patel, Deepak Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah.

Australia:

Aaron Finch (Captain), Steven Smith, Tim David, Glenn Maxwell, Ashton Agar, Cameron Green, Daniel Sams, Sean Abbott, Josh Inglis, Matthew Wade, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Kane Richardson, Adam Zampa, Nathan Ellis