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Toss India opted to bowl v West Indies
01:31
India’s handed debuts to left-arm spin-bowling allrounder Krunal Pandya and left-arm quick Khaleel Ahmed in their first-ever T20I at home without MS Dhoni. For the record, they elected to bowl as stand-in captain Rohit Sharma was wary of the dew, saying “it had already started to come in.”
India, who had already named their XII on the eve of the match, picked left-arm wristspinner Kuldeep Yadav over legspinner Yuzvendra Chahal and made a last-minute change, with Bhuvneshwar Kumar missing out because of a “gastric complaint”. Umesh Yadav came in as a like-for-like replacement. Bhuvneshwar is expected to be fit for the second T20I in Lucknow on November 6.
West Indies captain Carlos Brathwaite said he would have preferred to bowl first as well. He announced three debutants: fast bowler Oshane Thomas, left-arm spin-bowling allrounder Khary Pierre, and batting allrounder Fabian Allen.
Rovman Powell, had had opened in the final ODI in Thiruvananthapuram, was listed to open again with Darren Bravo, who was playing his first T20 since 2014 and first international since November 2016. Shai Hope, who wasn’t in the T20I squad in the first place, filled in for the injured Andre Russell.
India: 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 KL Rahul, 4 Manish Pandey, 5 Rishabh Pant (wk), 6 Dinesh Karthik, 7 Krunal Pandya, 8 Kuldeep Yadav, 9 Umesh Yadav, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Khaleel Ahmed
West Indies: 1 Rovman Powell, 2 Darren Bravo, 3 Shai Hope, 4 Shimron Hetmyer 5, Dinesh Ramdin (wk), 6 Kieron Pollard, 7 Carlos Brathwaite, 8 Keemo Paul, 9 Fabian Allen, 10 Khary Pierre, 11 Oshane Thomas
Deivarayan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
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