Australia won the toss and chose to bowl v England
Australia will bowl first at the Ageas Bowl in their international since March after winning the toss on a cloudy evening.
Both sides sprung a surprise in their playing XIs: Australia listed Marcus Stoinis at No. 6, despite Justin Langer saying coming into the series that he was primarily being considered as a top-order option, while England left out Sam Billings and picked both Dawid Malan and Tom Banton, the latter carded at No. 4.
That meant the three men left out for England were Billings, Joe Denly and Sam Curran, with Liam Livingstone and Saqib Mahmood the two reserves. The move leaves England with a significantly shorter batting line-up than they are used to, with Chris Jordan and Tom Curran coming in at Nos. 7 and 8.
Jofra Archer plays his first limited-overs international since the 2019 World Cup final, while Mark Wood and Jos Buttler will wear a coloured England kit for the first time this summer.
For Australia, there were two changes from their most recent T20I outing, the 97-run thrashing of South Africa in Cape Town back in February, with Glenn Maxwell – who missed that tour due to an elbow injury – replacing Matthew Wade in the middle order and Stoinis preferred to Mitchell Marsh. Seven of the XI played in Australia’s most recent international, 175 days ago behind closed doors at the SCG.
“It looks like a really good wicket,” Finch said. “We think it’ll stay together well, and it should be nice conditions to chase in. We’ve got two spinners, three quicks and a couple of allrounders.
“We’ve done the basics pretty well. It’s about putting out your best XI as often as you can [for us]. There will be an opportunity [for squad players] at some point over the next 12 months.”
Morgan said England were “playing four quicks, a spinner, and Moeen Ali as an allrounder. The most important thing for us is trying to maximise our potential with the players we have.”
England decided not to pick a left-arm seamer, having left David Willey out of their squad and opted against picking Sam Curran.
Before the toss, Chris Jordan was presented with a cap to mark his 50th T20I appearance. Jordan has a chance to move top of England’s all-time wicket-takers list in the format in this series, currently sitting four short of Stuart Broad.
England will wear black armbands in memory of David Capel, the former Northants allrounder and coach who passed away this week.
England: 1 Jonny Bairstow, 2 Jos Buttler (wk), 3 Dawid Malan, 4 Tom Banton, 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 Moeen Ali, 7 Tom Curran, 8 Chris Jordan, 9 Jofra Archer, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Mark Wood
Australia: 1 Aaron Finch (capt), 2 David Warner, 3 Steven Smith, 4 Glenn Maxwell, 5 Alex Carey (wk), 6 Marcus Stoinis, 7 Ashton Agar, 8 Adam Zampa, 9 Pat Cummins, 10 Mitchell Starc, 11 Kane Richardson
Source: ESPN Crickinfo