USA bowl, India pick Siraj with Bumrah out unwell

Toss United States of America chose to bowl vs India

The USA captain Monank Patel won the toss and gave the scary Indian batting unit free reins to bat first, rather than setting them a target. Not that India wouldn't have grabbed the reins anyway, as India's captain Suryakumar Yadav said India were going to bat had they won the toss.

Immediately speculation around 300 went around. India come in with three scores of 250 or more since the last World Cup. Overall, their four scores of 250 or more are the highest by any side during this cycle. Playing against a less established side, on the batting paradise of Wankhede Stadium, all eyes were on the total India were going to get.

Elsewhere, India were dealing with early fitness jitters. Having lost Harshit Rana thanks to an injury sustained during a warm-up fixture, India were without the unwell Jasprit Bumrah in the tournament opener. His place went to Rana's replacement, Mohammed Siraj, who last played a T20I in July 2024. Other than that India selected on expected lines: Ishan Kishan ahead of Sanju Samson, and only one mystery spinner in Varun Chakravarthy, leaving out Kuldeep Yadav.

The USA, a lot of them immigrants from India, were playing their first match in India. Hrameet Singh, Saurabh Netravalkar and Shubham Ranjane were three men in the first XI who started their cricket in Mumbai. The big-hitting wicketkeeper-batter Andries Gous came back into the XI after he missed their last T20I, the North America T20 Cup final last year.

India 1 Abhishek Sharma, 2 Ishan Kishan (wk), 3 Tilak Varma, 4 Suryakumar Yadav (capt.), 5 Hardik Pandya, 6 Rinku Singh, 7 Shivam Dube, 8 Axar Patel, 9 Arshdeep Singh, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Varun Chakravarthy

USA 1 Saiteja Mukkamalla, 2 Andries Gous (wk), 3 Monank Patel (capt.), 4 Milind Kumar, 5 Sanjay Krishnamurthi, 6 Harmeet Singh, 7 Shubham Ranjane, 8 Mohammad Mohsin, 9 Shadley van Schalkwyk, 10 Saurabh Netravalkar, 11 Ali Khan