PUNE, India, March 26, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – England’s stand-in-skipper Jos
Buttler won the toss and elected to bowl in their must-win second one-day
international against India on Friday.
The tourists, who trail the three-match series 1-0, have been forced to
make changes after injuries to regular captain Eoin Morgan and Sam Billings.
Dawid Malan, Liam Livingstone and Reece Topley make the team in place of
Morgan, Billings and Mark Wood.
“We played some good cricket the other day and let ourselves down at the
end,” Buttler said.
“We’ve tried to play the way we do for a long time and we have to be smart
about it at times but we’ll continue to be aggressive.”
England lost the opening ODI by 66 runs on Tuesday while chasing 318.
India also made one change with injured batsman Shreyas Iyer, who
dislocated his shoulder in the opening win, making way for Rishabh Pant.
Skipper Virat Kohli said India would have chosen to bat first if he had won
the toss.
“We wanted to bat first again,” said Kohli.
“That’s what development of team is all about. That’s why we wanted to put
ourselves in the same position. You have to be precise in your execution.”
Teams
India: Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli (capt), KL Rahul, Rishabh
Pant, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Shardul Thakur, Bhuvneshwar Kumar,
Kuldeep Yadav, Prasidh Krishna
England: Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Dawid Malan, Jos Buttler
(capt), Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Sam Curran, Tom Curran, Adil Rashid,
Reece Topley
Umpires: Virender Sharma (IND), Nitin Menon (IND)
TV umpire: Anil Chaudhary (IND)
Match referee: Javagal Srinath (IND)