Rishabh Pant or Suryakumar Yadav: India had to pick one between two middle-order contenders for the second ODI against England.
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During the second ODI of the ongoing England’s tour of India in Pune, England captain Jos Buttler has won the toss and elected to field following the pattern set by Eoin Morgan.
Leading England for the seventh time in ODIs, Buttler hoped for his team to deliver a “complete performance” today despite playing in the “fashion” they are known for in white-ball cricket.
“We are gonna bowl first. Similar reasons to the other day. The wicket will be similar. Let ourselves at the end [in the first ODI]. Hopefully, it’s a complete performance today. We have to be smart, we’ll continue to play in the fashion that we did. We’ll miss him as a batsman and a leader,” Buttler told Star Sports during the toss.
Apart from a couple of forced changes in playing Liam Livingstone and Dawid Malan for Morgan and Sam Billings, England have also included left-arm pacer Reece Topley for Mark Wood. Wood might have given away 75 runs in his 10-over spell on Tuesday but bowled well to dismiss the likes of Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer in the middle overs.
Is Rishabh Pant playing today?
Much like the last match, India captain Virat Kohli revealed that he was looking to bat first at the Maharashta Cricket Association Stadium today. India, also had a force change to make, have included Rishabh Pant for injured Shreyas Iyer.
“We wanted to bat first again. Conditions play a big part, soft outfield again, just getting runs on the board in the last game really helped us out. We always felt we were in the game. That’s what development of a team is all about. If you want to perform anywhere in the world against your wishes, then you have to be ready to do whatever happens at the toss.
“That’s why we wanted to put ourselves in a similar position again even if we won the toss. Hopefully, we can do much better in the middle overs. You have to be precise in your plans and executions. That’s something we did the last game. We didn’t want to take the game deep. We wanted to attack at all times,” Kohli told Star Sports during the toss.
