Both India and England will be looking to make changes to their squad for the remaining two ODI matches.
Shreyas Iyer’s shoulder injury means Suryakumar Yadav is definitely in contention for his batting slot.
India might also tweak their bowling combination as Kuldeep Yadav looked totally out of sorts. He seems to have lost his main weapon, the chinaman and along with it, skipper Kohli’s confidence.
His replacement could be his spin partner, Yuzvendra Chahal or even Mohammed Siraj, as the seamers got decent purchase from the Pune wicket.
Meanwhile England have suffered a major injury blow as their captain Eoin Morgan has been forced out due to a finger injury.
Sam Billings might also be unavailable for the game on Friday. His availability for Sunday’s final match is also a question mark.
Billings suffered an injury in his left collar bone while fielding in Tuesday’s match, which hadn’t healed by Thursday.
Jos Buttler will captain England in Morgan’s absence and Liam Livingstone is set to make his ODI debut.
Morgan suffered a split webbing between his thumb and index finger in the series opener, which required four stitches.
To his credit, Morgan went through a fielding drill during training at the MCA Stadium but later, declared himself unfit.
Morgan said, “I had the hand re-dressed before the start of training today but it quickly became apparent that I found myself protecting the injury and getting into the wrong positions to catch the ball.”
Dawid Malan, the world’s top T20 batsman has been included in the squad and is available for selection.
England will look to fight back and level the series as the world champions have a reputation to protect.
Teams
India: Virat Kohli (Captain), Rohit Sharma (vice-captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Shubman Gill, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), KL Rahul (wicket-keeper), Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Krunal Pandya, Washington Sundar, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Md. Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Shardul Thakur.
England: Eoin Morgan (Captain), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Sam Billings, Jos Buttler, Sam Curran, Tom Curran, Liam Livingstone, Matt Parkinson, Adil Rashid, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, Reece Topley, Mark Wood. Covers: Jake Ball, Chris Jordan, Dawid Malan.
