Kanpur, Sep 27 (IANS) India won the toss and elected to bowl first against Bangladesh in the second Test match, here at Green Park Stadium. India are playing with an unchanged eleven, whereas Bangladesh have made two changes, Khaled Ahmed and Tijul Islam come in for Nahid Rana and Taskin Ahmed.
Two interesting calls from Rohit – to bowl first and to stick to the same XI. This will be the first instance of teams winning the toss and opting to bowl first in consecutive men’s Test in India. In Chennai Test, Najmul won the toss and elected to bowl first.
The last time India opted to field first in a home Test was in Bengaluru (vs South Africa) in 2015. Only the second instance of a team opting to field first in 24 Tests in Kanpur, the first coming way back in 1964 (vs England)
“We are going to bowl first. The pitch seems a bit soft, so we have to make early inroads and we want our three seamers to make use of it. We didn’t start well with the bat in the first game, but we found a way to score and the bowlers did the job. I expect no different here, we will be challenged but we have the experience. We are playing with the same team,” said Rohit.
Bangladesh captain Shanto said, “Happy to bat first, we wanted to bat anyway. As a batter if we get a start we have to score well. Hope our batters can score big today. Looks like a good wicket to bat on. New ball batting will be key though. Two changes. Nahid and Taskin aren’t playing. Taijul and Khaled are in.”
Playing XIs:
Bangladesh: Shadman Islam, Zakir Hasan, Najmul Hossain Shanto(c), Mominul Haque, Mushfiqur Rahim, Shakib Al Hasan, Litton Das(w), Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Taijul Islam, Hasan Mahmud, Khaled Ahmed
India: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rohit Sharma(c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant(w), KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Akash Deep, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
–IANS
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