Team India will look to pull out all stops to defeat England in the second semifinal of the T20 World Cup 2022 at the Adelaide Oval on Thursday (November 10). After sticking with Dinesh Karthik for most of the tournament, skipper Rohit Sharma appears to have put his faith on Rishabh Pant to perform in the business end of the tournament.


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Pant, who only featured in India’s last Super 12 game against Zimbabwe at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, scored only 3 runs in the match. However, being a left-hander gives him an edge over Karthik as India look to target England spinners Adil Rashid and Liam Livingstone on the smaller Adelaide Oval ground.


“It was also a tactical move because we wanted to give a left-handed batter a chance to tackle New Zealand and England spinners in the middle overs. Both Pant and DK (Dinesh Karthik) are in the fray to play tomorrow’s semifinal,” Rohit Sharma said during the pre-match press conference in Adelaide on Wednesday (November 9).



India may also consider bringing in leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal to replace Axar Patel, who has been struggling to contain runs in the T20 World Cup. “Australian ground dimension are a challenge for everyone. It is not easy for guys who have not player here before. But we have responded well to pressure of playing at different venues. Adelaide has smaller side boundaries which is different from the last match we played at Melbourne. But will use the experience we got from playing here against Bangladesh,” Rohit said about the Australian ground dimension which might prompt a change.


England, on the other hand, have a couple of injury concerns. Former world No. 1 T20I batter Dawid Malan limped off the field with injury in England’s last match against Sri Lanka while pacer bowler Mark Wood has also been struggling. Phil Salt and Chris Jordan are in line to replace Malan and Wood respectively.


“Yeah, we’ll see how they pull up. We'll try and give them as long as possible, and obviously Dawid left the field the other day with a small niggle, and Woody has had a little bit of stiffness, but we trust the medical team. We trust those two guys, as well, and we'll give them as long as possible,” Buttler said in the pre-match press conference in Adelaide.


India vs England T20 World Cup 2022 2nd Semifinal Predicted Playing XI


India: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant/Dinesh Karthik, Axar Patel/Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh


England: Jos Buttler (c), Alex Hales, Dawid Malan/Phil Salt, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali, Liam Livingstone, Sam Curran, Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood/Chris Jordan