England skipper Jos Buttler won the toss & surprisingly opted to bowl first against India. Jos Buttler & Rohit Sharma both the skippers named an unchanged squad. There were some talks going on that India would rest Mohammed Siraj and bring in Ravichandran Ashwin in order to manage the workload of the speedster. Shubman Gill hasn’t been able to set the tournament on fire and would be keen to make a case for himself.
England has had a terrible title defense so far and is virtually out of the race for the Semi-Finals. At the same time, Jos Buttler’s brigade has the chance to spoil the party of the opposition teams and especially of India who have had a brilliant campaign so far.
Chris Woakes thrashes Shubman Gill’s stumps
Rohit Sharma & Shubman Gill got the team India to a decent start after scoring 22 runs in first 3 overs of the match. Chris Woakes was bowling the 4th over, the veteran speedster bowled straight lines & lengths and cramped Shubman Gill for room. Skipper Jos Buttler’s field placement was quite top notch.
On the last delivery of the over, Chris Woakes bamboozled Shubman Gill by bowling an in-swinging delivery and knocked over his off-stump. Shubman Gill was astounded and was clueless about the setup by Buttler & Woakes. India’s score at 4 overs was 26-1.
Crucial Phase for India
All eyes would be on the star batter Virat Kohli and once again, he will have to take the responsibility of scoring runs. It won’t be wrong to say that the over past decade, not much has changed as still Virat Kohli & R0hit Sharma, the two stalwarts of Indian cricket have to do the bulk of scoring.
The pitch doesn’t look a 330 one as there is uneven bounce and there are chances that spinners would have a great outing on the surface. It won’t be a surprise if Joe Root also rolls his arm on a turner. Skipper Jos Buttler would sense that couple of more wickets can make things for Rohit Sharma & Co.