Defending champion England have decided to field after winning toss in a World Cup match against India in Lucknow today.
The undefeated hosts can aim to plant one foot in the knockout stages, while England simply must beat India to keep their own semi-final hopes alive.
Jos Buttler said England’s decision to bowl “is a gut decision.”
Both India and England made no changes in their squads. India’s Hardik Pandya still recovering from his ankle injury.
Indian skipper Rohit Sharma said they wanted to bat first had he won the toss.
He said they’ve had a good time batting second, but this looks like a good pitch to him, new surface after it has been relied.
Rohit said its played quite nice and that his team doesn’t mind batting first.
India and England are playing out totally distinct campaigns at the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023.
England are only off the bottom of the standings on net run rate and all but out of contention to join the pointy end of the tournament.
India have mostly looked irrepressible as they brushed aside each of their five opponents so far but will still be wary of a defending champion now well and truly on the ropes.
A well-balanced attack has been a key to India’s bright start with 46 of a possible 50 batters dismissed thus far, including the full allotment against Australia, Pakistan and New Zealand.
That will rightly concern an England outfit that has failed to pass 200 in their two outings since scoring 215 to fall 69 runs short in the loss to Afghanistan that in hindsight exposed a range of deficiencies.
England will still have a winding route to take to the knockout stages even if they fail to turn around their form and fortunes to snatch a victory from India.
But a fourth consecutive loss would mean England need so many results to go their way that this already looks like the titleholders’ last stand.
TEAMS
India: 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Shubman Gill, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 KL Rahul (wk), 6 Suryakumar Yadav, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Kuldeep Yadav, 9 Mohammed Shami, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj.
England: 1 Jonny Bairstow, 2 Dawid Malan, 3 Joe Root, 4 Ben Stokes, 5 Jos Buttler (capt/wk), 6 Liam Livingstone, 7 Moeen Ali, 8 Chris Woakes, 9 David Willey, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Mark Wood.
