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White-ball cricket runs in a four-year cycle leading to its World Cup and the series of bilaterals that sides' play in between is essentially to finetune their squad for the marquee event. While the focus remains on winning first, and rightly so, the bilateral tournaments also give the teams' ample chance to make changes and try out their fringe players with one eye on the future. One of the things that Virat Kohli said leading into the series was the inherent urge to move on from the disappointment of the semi-final defeat and focus on the next ICC event.
The focus is well and truly now on the ICC T20 World Cup and with a long road leading into that event [India plays 26 T20Is before the World Cup], every series gives Team India a chance to try out new faces. Which is why the Men in Blue came into this series armed with standout performers from this years' IPL [Chahar brothers, Iyer, Manish Pandey, Navdeep Saini] and have already seen enough to jot down Krunal Pandya's name as one of the all-rounders.
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And with the series now already in the bag, it will be interesting to see if India rest a few of their regulars and make way for its fringe players. Will Shreyas Iyer finally get a look into the playing 11? Will India rest one of its openers to slot in KL Rahul at the top? Will we see the Chahar brothers and more specifically leg-spinner Rahul Chahar in India colors? Also, will Rishabh Pant finally learn to play according to the match-situation and do justice to both his selection and talent in white-ball cricket? One match. Plenty of Questions.
The West Indies, on the other hand, will be disappointed by the way that the 2nd T20I ended. But their batting has to take its share of the blame for it. Barring Kieron Pollard and Rovman Powell, none of their batters have stepped up to the party. Ewin Lewis hasn't been able to replicate his past form in this series against the Indians and has been regularly troubled by Bhuvneshwar Kumar thus far. He might face a shootout for the openers' spot with John Campbell while Sunil Narine is expected to continue in his role as an opener going into the last T20I at Guyana.
Match Details
Venue- Providence Stadium, Guyana
When- Tuesday, August 06, 2019, 08:00 PM IST
What to expect?
T20I cricket returns to the Providence stadium after a hiatus of nine years. The last T20I played at the venue was during the 2010 ICC World Twenty20. The pitch at Guyana is traditionally slow and tends to assist the spinners as the game goes deep.
Do You Know?
- If India wins today, it will be there second consecutive whitewash of the West Indies in T20I cricket.
- Irrespective of whether India wins today or not, this is already their first-ever T20I series [of more than one match] win in the Caribbean.
Probable 11-
West Indies-
Evin Lewis/John Campbell, Sunil Narine, Nicholas Pooran [wk], Shimron Hetmyer, Keemo Paul, Kieron Pollard, Carlos Brathwaite [c], Khary Pierre, Sheldon Cottrell, Oshane Thomas
India-
Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan/KL Rahul, Virat Kohli [c], Manish Pandey/Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant [wk], Krunal Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja/Rahul Chahar, Washington Sundar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed, Bhuvneshwar Kumar/Deepak Chahar