India are set to face England in a blockbuster semi-final fixture at the Adelaide Oval on Thursday.
India have found individual performers across the board throughout the Super 12 stage, with the standouts being Suryakumar Yadav and Virat Kohli with the bat and Arshdeep Singh with the ball. If there has been a weak zone, it has been in the finishing department with Dinesh Karthik failing to provide the magic touch that he has been giving India this year. He had made his comeback to the Indian team on the back of some incredible performances for Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2022 IPL. However he has failed to fire, recording only single digit scores whenever he did get to bat. In India’s last Super 12 match against Zimbabwe, Karthik had been replaced by Rishabh Pant, who himself has endured an inconsistent run in T20Is despite captaining the team during their home series against South Africa in June this year.
Rohit and head coach Rahul Dravid may included the left-handed Pant as it could provide a good match-up against the leg spin of Adil Rashid. Unlike Karthik though, Pant could be brought in as a No.5 batter. Spin-bowling all-rounder Axar Patel could be brought back into the team after being left out against Zimbabwe. India have not made too many changes to their lineup throughout the tournament and so it is hard to see them doing any more than leaving out Karthik, which means that spinner Yuzvendra Chahal will continue to be on the bench.
India’s predicted XI for the T20 World Cup 2022 Semi-final against England:
Openers: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul
Middle Order: Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk)
Power-hitters: Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel
Spinner: Ravichandran Ashwin
Pace bowlers: Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh
