A highly confident India looks set to wrap up another series on the UK tour unless England finds a way to tackle the marauding Kuldeep Yadav when the two teams clash in the second ODI at Lord’s here on Saturday.

Only a day’s gap between the two matches doesn’t go any good for England which has its task cut out after going down by eight wickets in the series opener.

In conditions resembling those in Manchester, in terms of a dry pitch, the English batsmen failed to comprehend Kuldeep’s wrist spin.

It has been a poor 10 days for Root, and England’s prime batsman for the summer is looking bereft of any confidence. This was the third time in three innings that he was out to wrist spin, falling to googlies in the two T20Is he played.

Promotion for Buttler

A school of thought suggests that Jos Buttler could be elevated in the batting order once again. He looked the most composed amongst English batsmen and extended his good run of form to get another half-century, although he batted only lower down the order.

Morgan had admitted that batting well against the new ball was England’s best chance to deny India. This could mean a promotion for Buttler to No. 3.

Hales out of series

Alex Hales has now been ruled out of the entire ODI series owing to a side strain. Middlesex batsman Dawid Malan will stay with the England squad for the second ODI.

India, meanwhile, might play the same eleven at Lord’s. Bhuvneshwar Kumar was seen bowling at Trent Bridge ahead of the first ODI, albeit the team management might not want to rush him back

It remains to be seen if the wicket at Lord’s — and Headingley thereafter — will have any green on the surface.

Tempting option

Kohli will be tempted to play his ‘key weapons’ Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal in the upcoming five-Test series against England, considering the wrists spinners’ stellar performance in the ongoing limited-overs leg of the tour. While Kuldeep has already played two Tests, Chahal is yet to earn the coveted cap in the longest version of the game.

“Anything is possible with the selection for Tests and there might be a few surprises. Kuldeep is making a strong case for himself and so is Chahal.

And looking at the way, the English batsmen have struggled against them, we might be tempted to do it,” said Kohli after India’s emphatic win in the opening ODI. “But the focus now is winning the next two games. Especially the next, looking at it from the series perspective,” the skipper added.

As Kohli hinted, the wrist-spinners might get a go in the five-day format as well.

The squads (from):

India: Virat Kohli (Capt.), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, M.S. Dhoni (wk), Dinesh Karthik, Suresh Raina, Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shreyas Iyer, Siddarth Kaul, Axar Patel, Umesh Yadav, Shardul Thakur and Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

England: Eoin Morgan (Capt.), Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler (wk), Moeen Ali, Joe Root, Jake Ball, Tom Curran, Dawid Malan, Liam Plunkett, Ben Stokes, Adil Rashid, David Willey and Mark Wood.

Match starts at 3.30 p.m. IST
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