Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Nov.5: India will go for broke once more in their battle for survival in the T20 World Cup when they face Scotland at Dubai International Stadium on Friday in another must-win match.
Scotland presents their favoured opponents with another wonderful platform to win it big and raise their net run-rate while hoping for other results to go their way two days after their thumping of Afghanistan in the T20 final.
Despite the devastation of Afghanistan, India’s semifinal hopes are in jeopardy due to back-to-back drubbings by Pakistan and New Zealand within the first eight days of the competition.
As they prepare for their fourth encounter in the Super 12 stage, Virat Kohli’s team faces a do-or-die situation.
Pakistan has already qualified for the semifinals after four straight victories, while New Zealand is favoured to join Pakistan in the last four from Group 2. A loss for the Kiwis against Namibia on Friday or Afghanistan next week, on the other hand, will put India on the back foot.
India, on the other hand, will try to concentrate on what they can manage rather than getting mired down in hypothetical discussions. While they have little influence over the results of other teams’ group matches, India can certainly beat Scotland.
Teams:
India: Virat Kohli (captain), Rohit Sharma (vc), KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Rahul Chahar, Varun Chakravarthy, Ravichandran Ashwin
Scotland: Kyle Coetzer (c), Richie Berrington, Dylan Budge, Matthew Cross, Josh Davey, Alasdair Evans, Chris Greaves, Michael Leask, Calum MacLeod, George Munsey, Safyaan Sharif, Hamza Tahir, Craig Wallace, Mark Watt, Bradley Wheal.