Toss India chose to bowl vs England
On what is expected to be the best surface for batting in the series so far, Surykumar was again keen to chase. “It looks nice and hard and I don’t think it’s going to change,” he said.
Shami’s return in place of the rested Arshdeep Singh is a significant moment after ankle surgery ruled him out of action for the whole of 2024. His last T20I was also against England, in the semi-final of the 2022 T20 World Cup.
Buttler confirmed that he too would have looked to field first. “We fought hard and pushed them all the way,” he said of England’s improved performance in the second T20I. “We need to be at our best tonight.”
England had already named an unchanged team, with Jacob Bethell continuing to sit out after illness and Jamie Smith taking the gloves from Phil Salt due to what Buttler described as a “tight calf”.
India: 1 Sanju Samson (wk), 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Tilak Varma, 4 Suryakumar Yadav (capt), 5 Hardik Pandya, 6 Dhruv Jurel, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Washington Sundar, 9 Ravi Bishnoi, 10 Mohammed Shami, 11 Varun Chakravarthy
England: Phil Salt, 2 Ben Duckett, 3 Jos Buttler (capt), 4 Harry Brook, 5 Liam Livingstone, 6 Jamie Smith (wk), 7 Jamie Overton, 8 Brydon Carse, 9 Jofra Archer, 10 Mark Wood, 11 Adil Rashid
