Bengaluru T20I: India, Australia teams arrive in city; Kohli and Co in must-win situation

Bengaluru: India and Australia cricket teams arrived in the city on Monday (February 25) for the second Twenty20 International which will be played on Wednesday at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

In a last-ball thriller on Sunday night, the visitors eked out a three-wicket victory in Visakhapatnam. Virat Kohli and his men are in a must-win situation now to level the two-match series.

Both India and Australian players landed in Bengaluru on Monday afternoon via chartered flights. They will have training sessions on Tuesday at Chinnaswamy Stadium.

For Kohli, Bengaluru is second home as he is the captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the Indian Premier League (IPL). The fans will be hoping for big runs from the skipper on Wednesday. It is expected to be a full house and a high-scoring contest is on the cards.

Also, homeboy KL Rahul will look to extend his good form after making a fine half century (36-ball 50) in Visakhapatnam. He was praised by Kohli after the first T20I.

“We want to give Rahul and Rishabh more game-time. Rahul played a really good knock and we had a good partnership. Had we gone on, we could have got 150, which would have been a match-winning score on this pitch. But Australia played better cricket overall and deserved to win,” Kohli had said.

Squads

India: Virat Kohli (captain), Rohit Sharma (vice-captain), KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni (wicketkeeper), Krunal Pandya, Vijay Shankar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Umesh Yadav, Sidharth Kaul, Mayank Markande.

Australia: Aaron Finch (captain), D'Arcy Short, Pat Cummins, Alex Carey (wicketkeeper), Jason Behrendorff, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Peter Handscomb, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Jhye Richardson, Kane Richardson, Marcus Stoinis, Ashton Turner, Adam Zampa.

• India
• Australia
• Cricket
• Bengaluru
• Chinnaswamy Stadium
• Twenty20
• International