India will hope to bounce back from their loss in the 1st T20I when they take on the West Indies in the 2nd T20I at the Guyana National Stadium on Sunday (August 6). However, in a blow just before the match, their frontline spinner Kuldeep Yadav was surprisingly not in the Playing XI despite being in good form heading into this game.
Now, ahead of the main match, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has released a statement on why he was excluded from the Playing XI for this match.
"UPDATE: Kuldeep Yadav got hit while batting in the nets and was unavailable for selection for the 2nd T20I due to a sore left thumb," said the official statement.
Meanwhile, West Indies played the same XI that they fielded in the first T20I which they won by four runs.
After the toss India skipper Hardik Pandya said,“We will bat first, surface looks good. We will put good score on the board. I don't think we did much wrong in the last game, we spoke about it and the focus is to learn and keep going ahead. When we have these totals (chasing 9 or 10 an over), you gotta keep wickets in hand and that's what happened in the last game where we lost a couple of wickets during crunch moments. We have a forced change. Kuldeep got a hit on the hand yesterday in the nets, it is not serious and just a precautionary measure. Ravi Bishnoi comes in place of him.”
West Indies captain Rovman Powell said before the match,"Looks a pretty good surface and hopefully gets better as the day goes along. We didn't lose wickets in clusters in the last game which was good to see. We have grown as players and it is about continuing to do the right things and keep improving as a batting unit. We are going with the same team".
