Former India player turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has picked the Indian team’s likely playing XI for the fifth T20I against England. While saying that the game allows experimentation, he added that the hosts will likely go ahead with the last game’s top eight in the batting order as well.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel ‘Aakash Chopra’, he said, “You can say it’s a dead rubber, but an advantage of a dead rubber is that you can experiment a little. Since you have won the series, you say you can try a bit. I don’t think there is any need or scope for trying in batting. Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson – you will play with them only. Tilak Varma is coming at No. 3 and Suryakumar Yadav is coming at No. 4. Rinku Singh came at No. 5. Then you have Hardik Pandya at No. 6 and Shivam Dube and Axar Patel after that. So your batting order is already sorted.”
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In the same video, Aakash Chopra also stated that Team India could rest Arshdeep Singh and play Mohammed Shami and Harshit Rana as well.
“However, I feel there is a possibility in bowling. We can see it in two or three ways. We can play Arshdeep Singh as he has reached 99 wickets and can reach 100 at the Wankhede ground, or else we can ask him to rest because we have won the series. So we will play Mohammed Shami and play Harshit Rana along with him. I am asking both of them to be played because you will need fast bowling here, and there might also be more dew here. So the spinners’ job will become difficult in case you get to bat first. The difficult job will also be whom to sit out,” Chopra shared.
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“You don’t want to make Varun Chakaravarthy sit out because he has picked up 12 wickets. Ravi Bishnoi has one of the best economy rates in this series and he took three wickets in the last match. Harshit Rana might not get a chance, or else the Indian team might ask Ravi Bishnoi to sit out because they want to play both Harshit Rana and Shami as they need a bit more pace on this pitch,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
