Indian cricket team fast bowler Mohammed Shami made his long-awaited comeback as he replaced Arshdeep Singh in the playing XI for the third T20I encounter against England in Rajkot on Thursday. Shami, who last played for India in the ICC World Cup 2023 final against Australia, suffered an ankle injury after the tournament and had to undergo surgery. However, he proved himself in domestic cricket following his recovery and after missing the first two matches, he will be playing for India in Rajkot.
Coming to the match, India skipper Suryakumar Yadav won the toss and opted to field.
“We will bowl first, looks nice and hard, don’t think it will change later as well. Rajkot has always been a good track, sure it will be a sporting one. We wanted to play a different brand of cricket but at the same time you need to understand the situation and he (Tilak) bailed the side out. We’ll look at it as a 3 game series from here, boys are charged up. Arshdeep is resting, Shami comes in,” SKY said at the toss.
India hold a 2-0 lead in the five-match series after winning the first match in Kolkata by seven wickets and the second in Chennai by two wickets.
“Looks a really good surface, looking forward to batting. We would’ve chased as well. Looks a good wicket, guys have had a good practice yesterday and we’re excited for the match. Was a really good game of cricket, we fought really hard and pushed them all the way. We need to play really well tonight. We know how well India play, they’re a strong team. We need a good total to defend. Same team but Jamie Smith will keep wickets, Salt has got a little stiff calf,” England captain Jos Buttler said at the toss.
England retained their playing XI for this contest.
Teams:
India: Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav (c), Hardik Pandya, Dhruv Jurel, Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohammed Shami, Varun Chakravarthy.
England: Jos Buttler (c), Ben Duckett, Philip Salt (wk), Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone, Jamie Smith, Jamie Overton, Brydon Carse, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood.
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