Big picture: Final T20I crucial and irrelevant at the same time
It’s a proud record, and it must mean a lot to India’s players and coaching staff, but what does it actually mean in an attention economy devoted to the ICC event cycle? In one vocal and hard-to-please corner of social media, Sunday’s series-sealing six-wicket win against Afghanistan was notable chiefly for India’s refusal to bat first after winning the toss. They hadn’t challenged themselves enough, and to not challenge yourself with a T20 World Cup imminent is, well, unpardonable.
That T20 World Cup is now even more imminent. The series finale in Bengaluru is India’s last T20I before that tournament. That tournament, however, is still nearly five months – and an entire IPL season – away.
Bengaluru, then, occupies a strange and hard-to-categorise space. It is both a crucial game in the lead-up to a global tournament and a dead-rubber match far removed from any event of real significance. If it is to mean anything at all, that meaning may only become apparent months from now.
How much simpler it must be, then, to merely play the game, and truly live it one ball at a time.
Form guide
India WWWLW (last five completed T20Is, most recent first)
Afghanistan LLWLW
In the spotlight
Team news
India (possible): 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Shivam Dube, 5 Jitesh Sharma (wk), 6 Rinku Singh, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Washington Sundar, 9 Arshdeep Singh, 10 Avesh Khan/Ravi Bishnoi/Kuldeep Yadav, 11 Mukesh Kumar.
Afghanistan (possible): 1 Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), 2 Ibrahim Zadran (capt), 3 Gulbadin Naib, 4 Azmatullah Omarzai, 5 Mohammad Nabi, 6 Najibullah Zadran, 7 Karim Janat, 8 Mujeeb Ur Rahman, 9 Noor Ahmad/Qais Ahmad, 10 Naveen-ul-Haq, 11 Fazalhaq Farooqi.
Pitch and conditions
That match came close on the heels of the ODI World Cup, which featured five Bengaluru games. The groundstaff have had plenty of time since then to prepare a fresh pitch for this game, so more typical Chinnaswamy conditions can be expected. There was a generous tinge of green on the pitch on the eve of the match, though much of the grass cover is likely to be trimmed before the start of play.
The forecast promises a clear, pleasant evening with temperatures in the mid-20s Celsius.
Stats and trivia
Quotes
Afghanistan coach Jonathan Trott on his expectations from the final T20I
Karthik Krishnaswamy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
