3 changes India should make to get back to winning ways in 2nd T20I against Bangladesh

2. Manish Pandey for Shikhar Dhawan

Shikhar Dhawan’s lack of purpose and intent in the powerplay overs is clearly evident. Every team needs to have a dasher at the top of the order who can derail opposition’s plans to succeed in the T20s. India have none as Rohit Sharma also needs a few overs to get into his zone. This puts added pressure on Dhawan to up the scoring, something that he hasn’t been able to do in 2019.

He has had a year to forget in T20Is in 2019- 222 runs at a paltry average of 22 at a strike rate of 109.97. These are certainly not stats that are going to help or bolster India’s chances of winning the T20 WC. And what’s surprising is India’s best T20I batsman after Virat Kohli, KL Rahul has just played four games before the T20I in New Delhi. Rahul has played 29 T20Is at a formidable average of 40 and at a strike rate of 146.47. He should ideally open the innings with the skipper Rohit Sharma in Rajkot.

Shikhar Dhawan should be replaced by Manish Pandey in the playing XI. Manish Pandey led Karnataka to glory in the recently concluded Vijay Hazare Trophy. He wasn’t too impressive in the chances he got playing in the middle order for India in T20Is this year. So he went back to the drawing board, worked on his game and has produced the results.

Manish Pandey accumulated 525 runs at an outstanding average of 105 in the tournament, spearheading Karnataka’s success. Batting at No. 4, Pandey felt as the skipper of his side, he had to take the innings deep and score big. The added responsibility of leading a side seems to have done him good. He’s fresh of some solid performances and India need to use that to attack the Bangladesh bowlers.