After a bizarre series of events delayed the match by not one, two but three hours, the toss finally took place for the second T20I of the five-T20I series. West Indies skipper Nicholas Pooran won the toss and opted to field first at Warner Park, Basseterre, St Kitts. Rohit made one change by bringing in pacer Avesh Khan in place of leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi.
Pooran made two changes to the side after a comprehensive loss in the first T20I. In place of Keemo Paul, he included Odean Smith whereas Brandon King came back into the side in place of Shamarah Brooks.
After losing the toss, Rohit said that he will continue to experiment with the batting order.
“It was quite pleasing for us, the way we played first game. We stuck to our plans and executed it really well. It's another opportunity for us and we are looking to repeat what we did in the first one. We want the guys to be able to bat anywhere and don't want them to be batting in specific positions. We want the guys to be flexible, there are two ways to look at it depending on certain players. We probably read the pitch well in the first game and thought as a team we made the right call to go with three spinners. The dimensions are different here and wanted to get an extra seamer here. Bishnoi misses out unfortunately and Avesh Khan comes in. It's unfortunate that he misses out but we are trying whatever we can from the team's perspective,” Rohit said at the coin toss.
“We gonna [sic] have a bowl, wickets look nice and we will try and use our experience. We want to forget that game and believe in our process and execute our plans. Different conditions today and the guys are looking forward to whatever spin/seam attack they have. We have two changes. Keemo Paul and Brooks are out,” Pooran said after winning the toss.
India Playing XI: Rohit Sharma(c), Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant(w), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Dinesh Karthik, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh
West Indies Playing XI: Kyle Mayers, Brandon King, Nicholas Pooran(c), Rovman Powell, Shimron Hetmyer, Devon Thomas(w), Jason Holder, Akeal Hosein, Odean Smith, Alzarri Joseph, Obed McCoy
