West Indies won the toss and elected to bowl first in the second Test match against India at Trinidad’s Port of Spain on Thursday, July 20. The Indian team was made to make one forced change to their playing eleven with uncapped pacer Mukesh Kumar coming in for pace all-rounder Shardul Thakur.
There were no other surprise changes to India’s playing eleven with Mohammed Siraj and Jaydev Unadkat forming a pace attack with debutant Mukesh. Rohit revealed that Shardul was not available for selection for the second Test due to injury. The Indian captain said that the pacer has pulled up a groin issue and will sit out this game.
“We were looking to bat first. Nice and sunny as well. The pitch will get slower as the match goes on, so okay with batting first. One change: Shardul has pulled up a niggle – a groin issue, it brings Mukesh on for a debut. Lots of memories from the rivalry, especially our batters trying to put their hands up against great fast bowlers. Even now you have to work hard to get a result, especially the batters. Scoring isn’t easy. We got a lot of positives and hope to get the right result,” Rohit Sharma
India won the opening Test by an innings and 141 runs to take a 1-0 lead in the two-match Test series. Shardul bowled only seven overs in the first innings where he took one wicket and didn’t get a single over in the second innings on the spin-friendly surface at Dominica.
After the first match, Rohit hinted at some potential changes for the second game for the benched players. But the fans saw only one change to the playing XI with the likes of Ruturaj Gaikwad, Navdeep Saini, Axar Patel, and KS Bharat getting no gameplay in this red-ball series.
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