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2nd T20I: Windies elect to bowl; Bhuvneshwar replaces Umesh

Welcome to the coverage of second T20 International between India and West Indies in Lucknow on Tuesday.

India’s four-match losing streak in T20 Internationals against the West Indies ended on Sunday in Kolkata as they claimed a five-wicket win in the three-match T20I series opener. And in the penultimate game of what has been a disastrous tour for the visitors, India would be favourites to lock the series in their favour.

The five-wicket win in Kolkata might have looked a bit laboured for the hosts but the absence of batting talisman and captain Virat Kohli cannot be discounted.

It was also the first T20 International for which India dropped Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the colossus whose batting form has been on the wane but the cricketing brain and reflexes behind the stumps remain assets for the team.

Rohit Sharma is leading the side in Kohli’s absence and the 31-year-old usually thrives with the additional responsibility of captaincy.

But Sunday was a rare failure for the Mumbai right-hander and he would look to make up for that with a big knock on Tuesday

Besides Rohit, opener Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, the young Rishabh Pant, and Manish Pandey also had a bad day in office in the series-opener.

It took a responsible 34-ball 31 from Dinesh Karthik and a nine-ball 21-run unbeaten cameo from debutant Krunal Pandya to steer India home in 17.5 overs.

But on Tuesday, Lucknow, which is hosting its first international match at the newly-built Ekana Stadium, would be eager to see a more dominant performance from the home team, one that’s befitting the gulf in quality between the two sides.

On the bowling front, left-arm chinaman Kuldeep Yadav stole the limelight with brilliant figures of 3/13 from his four overs, while left-arm pacer Khaleel Ahmed (1/16) and Pandya (1/15) were economical.

West Indies, on the other hand, would be desperate to return home with some positivity at the end of a two-month long series in which they have lost both the Test and ODI series.

While two-Test series was lost 0-2 in just six days of action, they posed some challenge in the subsequent ODI series before being thrashed 1-3 with a nine-wicket loss in Thiruvananthapuram in the fifth and final one-dayer.

Source: Rediff