England bat; Nepal hand debut to Sher Malla

Toss England chose to bat vs Nepal

Rohit Paudel warned Harry Brook that a used pitch at Wankhede Stadium could play into his team's hands as Nepal were asked to bowl first in their first-ever international match against England.

Sunday afternoon's game will be played on the same strip where India's powerhouse batting line-up eked out 161 for 9 against United States on Saturday night. Brook won the toss and chose to bat first with conditions in mind, but Paudel said that Nepal's players "love slow tracks" and that they hoped the surface would suit them.

"We love slow tracks, and it's a used wicket so I think it will spin a little bit," Paudel said. "I think, if that happens, it will help our team… To be honest, we would have bowled first. Looking at the conditions, I think chasing is a good option."

Young spinner Sher Malla made his T20I debut for Nepal, while Lokesh Bam was preferred to the veteran Sompal Kami in the middle order.

Nepal play all four of their group games at the Wankhede and will be cheered on by thousands of their fans in Mumbai. "Playing all the games here will always be an advantage to the team playing all four games here," Paudel said. "As a team, playing in Asian conditions always helps Nepal."

Brook predicted that the pitch would get worse as the game wore on. "We feel like the pitch is going to be in the best shape for the first innings, and then hopefully we can bowl well and defend our score in the second innings… It looked like there was a little bit of spin in it, and a little bit of bounce, so hopefully we can utilise that in the second innings."

England named their team on the eve of the match, with Luke Wood preferred to Jamie Overton. "We wanted to go with two out-and-out seamers up top with the new ball to see if we can get it to swing and get a few early wickets in the powerplay," Brook said. "Pretty much everything else was already settled."

England's build-up to the tournament has been overshadowed by Brook's now-infamous night out in Wellington last October, but he has tried to draw a line under the incident. "I'm feeling good," he said. "I'm feeling good with the bat, and hopefully I can make some good decisions as captain as well - on and off the field."

England: 1 Phil Salt, 2 Jos Buttler (wk), 3 Jacob Bethell, 4 Tom Banton, 5 Harry Brook (capt), 6 Sam Curran, 7 Will Jacks, 8 Liam Dawson, 9 Jofra Archer, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Luke Wood.

Nepal: 1 Aasif Sheikh (wk), 2 Kushal Bhurtel, 3 Rohit Paudel (capt), 4 Dipendra Airee, 5 Aarif Sheikh, 6 Lokesh Bam, 7 Gulsan Jha, 8 Karan KC, 9 Sher Malla, 10 Nandan Yadav, 11 Sandeep Lamichhane.