Moeen Ali, Sam Billings and Tom Curran in England XI; KL Rahul and T Natarajan miss India
Tilg England pick a bowl vs. India
India gave ODI their first chance to spin the fringe of Krunal Pandya and fast bowler Prasidh Krishna in Pune, where they were asked to bat first after Eoin Morgan won the toss .
“It looks good on a wicket, it has a lot of grass, more than we expected,” said Morgan. “It’s beautiful ground, a change of shape and we’re looking forward to it.”
England brought Moeen Ali into their squad, giving them a second spinning option, along with Adil Rashid, Mark Wood and the Curran brothers. Sam Billings was also involved after sitting out the T20I series, while Ben Stokes, playing his first ODI since the World Cup final, went on to bat at No. 3. without Joe Root.
India captain Virat Kohli said he had asked his team to use a “beautiful” battery surface first.
“Very happy, to be honest,” he said. “Plans are a bit different for us today. This outdoor field is very soft and we wanted to put them into the field first. It’s a beautiful wicket to bat on, very hard. and good grass cover, so I think it’s a good opportunity to put a run on the table. “
The presence of two uncovered bowling options for India meant there was no room for KL Rahul or T Natarajan, and Kuldeep Yadav preferred Yuzvendra Chahal.
The three-game ODI series, with points for the World Cup Super League involved, concludes England’s tour of India, after the guests won the Test and T20I Tests.
India: 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Virat Kohli (capt), 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 Rishabh Pant (wk), 6 Krunal Pandya, 7 Hardik Pandya, 8 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 9 Shardul Thakur, 10 Kuldeep Yadav, 11 Prasidh Krishna
England: 1 Jason Roy, 2 Jonny Bairstow, 3 Ben Stokes, 4 Eoin Morgan (capt), 5 Jos Buttler (wk), 6 Sam Billings, 7 Moeen Ali, 8 Sam Curran, 9 Tom Curran, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Mark Wood
Alan Gardner is deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo. @alanroderick