Pitch and weather: Of the five World Cup games played in Melbourne so far, only the opening match was undisturbed by rain. The previous one, between England and Ireland, was shortened, and the previous three were washed out. Fortunately, Sunday is not expected to rain. Expect some assistance for seamers because the pitch will be fresh, but batters should enjoy the ball as it approaches the bat.
Today’s highlights of the India-Zimbabwe match. ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022: 42nd Match, Group 2 (N), Melbourne Cricket Ground, Sunday, November 6, 2022.
Toss: India will bat first.
Rohit Sharma: “It’s the preference of the team, nothing to do with the pitch. Pitch looks good. We wanted to give our bowlers a chance to defend a score.” Rishabh Pant is in for Dinesh Karthik. “Rishabh is the only guy who hasn’t played a single game, including the practice games. We wanted to give him a game before the semi-finals.”
Craig Ervine says he’s happy to bowl first. “We had some fielding sessions yesterday under lights, and it seemed like there was some dew. If that happens tonight, it could help us.”
Wellington Masakadza and Tony Munyonga in for Milton Shumba and Luke Jongwe. “We felt we hadn’t been using our pace resources fully in the previous matches, so we decided to go with the extra spinner,” Ervine says, explaining the left-arm orthodox spinner Masakadza’s inclusion. It’ll be interesting to see if he bowls inside the powerplay.
India team: 1 KL Rahul, 2 Rohit Sharma (capt), 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Suryakumar Yadav, 5 Rishabh Pant (wk), 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Axar Patel, 8 R Ashwin, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Mohammed Shami, 11 Arshdeep Singh.
Zimbabwe team: 1 Wesley Madhevere, 2 Craig Ervine (capt), 3 Regis Chakabva (wk), 4 Sean Williams, 5 Sikandar Raza, 6 Tony Munyonga, 7 Ryan Burl, 8 Tendai Chatara, 9 Richard Ngarava, 10 Wellington Masakadza, 11 Blessing Muzarabani.
