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Toss India chose to field v England
MS Dhoni won his third successive toss and asked England to bat even as the fog lifted to allow a timely start in cold Mohali. England made an expected change, and chose Jos Buttler to keep wicket in place of Craig Kieswetter, who has struggled with the bat against spin this series.
While England persisted with the expensive Jade Dernbach, India took the unexpected call of leaving out the opener Ajinkya Rahane after a couple of failures in Kochi and Ranchi. Rohit Sharma was drafted in, and it was not clear who would come out to open the innings with Gautam Gambhir. When Virender Sehwag was in the squad, Rahane had spent months on the bench, his chances restricted to a lone ODI appearance in all of 2012 in a dead game in Sri Lanka.
In Mohali, Dhoni said the pitch had spent some time under covers and had no hesitation in sending Alastair Cook and his men in. While Cook agreed about the slightly damp conditions, he also pointed out that Mohali had produced some high-scoring games, and hoped there would be similar help for his bowlers in the second innings.
India lead the five-match series 2-1, and England need to avoid losing today to prevent a fourth successive bilateral ODI series defeat in India.
India: 1 Gautam Gambhir, 2 Rohit Sharma, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 Suresh Raina, 6 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 R Ashwin, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Shami Ahmed, 11 Ishant Sharma
England: 1 Alastair Cook (capt), 2 Ian Bell, 3 Kevin Pietersen, 4 Joe Root, 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 Samit Patel, 7 Jos Buttler (wk), 8 Tim Bresnan, 9 James Tredwell, 10 Steven Finn, 11 Jade Dernbach
MS Dhoni won his third successive toss and asked England to bat even as the fog lifted to allow a timely start in cold Mohali. England made an expected change, and chose Jos Buttler to keep wicket in place of Craig Kieswetter, who has struggled with the bat against spin this series.
While England persisted with the expensive Jade Dernbach, India took the unexpected call of leaving out the opener Ajinkya Rahane after a couple of failures in Kochi and Ranchi. Rohit Sharma was drafted in, and it was not clear who would come out to open the innings with Gautam Gambhir. When Virender Sehwag was in the squad, Rahane had spent months on the bench, his chances restricted to a lone ODI appearance in all of 2012 in a dead game in Sri Lanka.
In Mohali, Dhoni said the pitch had spent some time under covers and had no hesitation in sending Alastair Cook and his men in. While Cook agreed about the slightly damp conditions, he also pointed out that Mohali had produced some high-scoring games, and hoped there would be similar help for his bowlers in the second innings.
India lead the five-match series 2-1, and England need to avoid losing today to prevent a fourth successive bilateral ODI series defeat in India.
India: 1 Gautam Gambhir, 2 Rohit Sharma, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 Suresh Raina, 6 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 R Ashwin, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Shami Ahmed, 11 Ishant Sharma
England: 1 Alastair Cook (capt), 2 Ian Bell, 3 Kevin Pietersen, 4 Joe Root, 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 Samit Patel, 7 Jos Buttler (wk), 8 Tim Bresnan, 9 James Tredwell, 10 Steven Finn, 11 Jade Dernbach