Toss Australia opt to field v India
With one eye on winning their first bilateral T20I series in India, Australia captain Aaron Finch chose to field against India at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. India captain Virat Kohli said they would’ve liked to field first as well, and expected the Bengaluru surface to be high scoring.
Australia came into the game unchanged, with four fast bowlers, legspinner Adam Zampa and allrounder Marcus Stoinis. India, who made only 126 for 7 in Visakhapatnam, made three changes.
The addition of Shikhar Dhawan and Vijay Shankar lengthens India’s batting order, while Siddarth Kaul replaces Umesh Yadav. Rohit Sharma has been ‘rested’ while legspinner Mayank Markande was left out for the allrounder option in Shankar.
India have not lost a bilateral T20I series against Australia since being defeated in a one-off match at the MCG in January 2008, and victory for the hosts would mean that the series is shared before the five-match ODI series commences next week.
Australia XI: 1 D’Arcy Short, 2 Marcus Stoinis, 3 Aaron Finch (capt), 4 Glenn Maxwell, 5 Peter Handscomb (wk), 6 Ashton Turner, 7 Nathan Coulter-Nile, 8 Pat Cummins, 9 Jhye Richardson, 10 Jason Behrendorff, 11 Adam Zampa
India XI: 1 Shikhar Dhawan, 2 KL Rahul, 3 Virat Kohli (capt), 4 Rishabh Pant, 5 MS Dhoni (wk), 6 Dinesh Karthik, 7 Vijay Shankar, 8 Krunal Pandya, 9 Yuzvendra Chahal, 10 Siddarth Kaul, 11 Jasprit Bumrah
Source: ESPN Crickinfo