Birthday boy Virat Kohli finally won his first toss of the T20 World Cup. Kohli won a toss in T20Is after a big gap of six games. For the Scotland clash, Kohli made one change to the winning combination bringing in fit-again Varun Chakravarthy in place of Shardul Thakur.
Kohli won the toss and chose to bowl first. Kohli continued with Ravichandran Ashwin as the veteran took two wickets for 14 runs against Afghanistan in the previous game. Kohli trusted to go with three spinners against Scotland who were bundled out for 60 on the same venue by Afghanistan in their first match. Scotland batters struggled against Mujeeb ur Rahman and Rashid Khan as they picked up a five and four wickets respectively.
“Winning my first toss on my birthday, probably we should have played the first game on my birthday (smiles). The intensity from ball one is important,” a relieved 33-year-old said.
Chakravarthy has been wicketless in the two games he has played so far. Against Pakistan, he went for 33 runs in his quota of four overs. In the Kiwi encounter, he bowled an economical spell conceding just 23 runs but failed to take a wicket. On the other hand, Thakur who replaced Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the side has not taken a wicket in two games either. He gave 17 runs against Kiwis and 31 runs against Afghanistan. He leaked a few boundaries in the Afghanistan game in death overs.
India Playing XI: KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli (c), Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakravarthy
Scotland (Playing XI): George Munsey, Kyle Coetzer(c), Matthew Cross(w), Richie Berrington, Calum MacLeod, Michael Leask, Chris Greaves, Mark Watt, Safyaan Sharif, Alasdair Evans, Bradley Wheal
