In final T20, Kohli faces a challenge, Warner a chance
All of a sudden, a challenge confronts Virat Kohli’s desperate India while an opportunity beckons Australia. The winner takes all in the T20I series decider in Hyderabad on Friday.
For the David Warner-led visitors, it’s a golden opportunity to win their maiden T20I series in India after having little to cheer about in the past two months in the sub-continent.
For Kohli, the challenge is to keep his series-winning streak intact at home since taking over captaincy from MS Dhoni.
BATSMEN’S WOES Everything seemed to be going well for the
Indian batsmen in this series until Jason Behrendorff’s devastating spell happened in second T20I in Guwahati.
The angle that the left-arm pacer generated caught the Indian top-order off-guard.
After successfully tackling right-arm pacers like Nathan Coulter-Nile and Kane Richardson in the ODIs, the Indian batsmen found the pace and swing of the tall Behrendorff too hot to handle.
With the series on the line, India need to buck up in some areas and the team management may well have realised that.
In the five T20Is India played in 2017 before this series, they won three games with at least one among the top three scoring a halfcentury.
While Bhuvneshwar Kumar was impressive upfront, Jasprit Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal went for a few runs. But they all have been consistent in the limited-overs format in recent times and Tuesday’s performance was one-off.
However, a major question is the fifth bowler. India have tried Pandya and Kedar Jadhav of late.
Though Pandya was economical in the second T20I, he had leaked runs in previous matches.
HYDERABAD:
NEHRA UNLIKELY
It would also be interesting to see if Ashish Nehra, who confirmed on Friday that he will retire after the upcoming T20I series against New Zealand, will get a chance. It is unlikely he will be picked as in-form Bhuvneshwar and Bumrah have been bowling well.
RAIN THREAT
Like in the previous two matches, there is prediction of rain on Friday. Hyderabad had been receiving incessant showers over the past one week and the groundsmen could be seen working hard to make the field ready.