India vs England: India look to wrap up series win at Cardiff

A dominant opening win has set the tone and India would look to ensure that a spinwary England remains on the backfoot when the two sides clash in the second T20 International here tomorrow Kuldeep Yadav took 524 and KL Rahul scored an unbeaten second T20I ton as the Men in Blue produced a fine allround display to stun the hosts by eight wickets in Manchester for an early lead on this tour A win tomorrow would seal the threematch series for Virat Kohli and CoIn fact India stand on the cusp of a sixth successive T20I series win a run stretching back to their 21 win over New Zealand at home in November 2017 In all they have been unbeaten in bilateral T20I series since September last year In terms of ICC Rankings a 20 series lead will allow India to close the gap with secondplaced Australia while a 30 whitewash will help them overleap to second behind topranked PakistanAustralia will have to win both their next two games in the ongoing triseries in Zimbabwe to stay above India A loss on Friday will see England drop down to rank seven below New Zealand South Africa and West Indies respectively It will be a surprising downturn for the highflying English team one of the better in limitedovers cricket at the moment It is a stark reminder of their poor winning ratio nevertheless having won only 5 out of their last 10 T20 internationalsThe big question facing England is how to contend with the unorthodox wrist spin of Kuldeep Yadav In the aftermath of their loss on Tuesday both skipper Eoin Morgan and ace batsman Jos Buttler have urged their teammates to show more patience at the crease and watch the ball carefullyBut with such a short turnaround in the fixtures list it is easier said than done The English camp will deploy the services of spinbowling machine Merlyn at Cardiff A scarcity of unorthodox wrist spinners to practice against is one of the key reasons for this move as the spinbowling machine is capable of replicating every style of deliveryAn English team last used it ahead of the 2005 Ashes when they were practicing to contend with Shane Warne A key reason underlined by Morgan after the first defeat was that the middleorder batsmen Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root who both got stumped off successive googlies needed more time to settle inDespite the loss one of the key strengths for England is their toporders ability to handle pace and they would like another fast start at Cardiff It is perhaps the only real concern for India emanating from that first game as the enforced newball pairing of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Umesh Yadav was proven ineffective at Old TraffordEven with Kuldeep causing all sorts of trouble for the hosts India wouldnt like to to pull things back after a highflying English start once again The visitors are unlikely to make a change and disturb their winning combination and the pacers will have to learn from the experience of bowling on such batsmenfriendly pitchesEnglands toporder in particular Jason Roy doesnt enjoy facing spin in the powerplay overs and India might opt for Krunal Pandya who is proficient at bowling economical leftarm spin However it is tough to see the Indian team management making space for him in the eleven after just one game Instead they might back Yuzvendra Chahal to deliver any initial spin overs despite being taken for runs in ManchesterWeather could play a part in the game here at the Sophia Gardens After enjoying a sunny welcome both in Dublin and Manchester the team was greeted to typical English grey skies light rain and chill when they arrived in Cardiff on Wednesday It is expected to clear out for match day but rain curtailed the last game these two sides played here in 2014India had won that ODI with an allround performance from Suresh Raina England pacer Tom Curran has been ruled out of the remaining T20Is and the ODI series owing to a left side strain For the ODIs his brother Sam has been named as replacementTeams India Virat Kohli c Shikhar Dhawan Rohit Sharma KL Rahul Suresh Raina Manish Pandey MS Dhoni wk Dinesh Karthik Yuzvendra Chahal Kuldeep Yadav Krunal Pandya Bhuvneshwar Kumar Deepak Chahar Hardik Pandya Siddarth Kaul Umesh YadavEngland Eoin Morgan c Moeen Ali Jonny Bairstow Jake Ball Jos Buttler wk Sam Curran Alex Hales Chris Jordan Liam Plunkett Adil Rashid Joe Root Jason Roy David Willey Dawid Malan Match starts at 10 pm ISTAlso Read KL Rahul This Century Means The World To MeCatch up on all the latest sports news and updates here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updatesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Except for the change in headline the story has been provided ASIS AS AVAILABLE without any verification or editing from our side Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any 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