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USA skipper Monank Patel won the toss and elected to field first against defending champions India in their ICC T20 World Cup campaign opener at Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium on Saturday.
The Men in Blue will start their quest to become the first team to defend their T20 World Cup title against the USA, which surprised everyone during the 2024 edition by reaching the Super 8, including a win over Pakistan and close games against India and South Africa. USA skipper Monank, who spent the early years of his cricket in India, said during the toss, "We are going to bowl first. Looks like a good surface. High-scoring ground, so we will look to hunt it down. The World Cup is one of the biggest stages for us. A lot of expectations from the US, so we will look to do well. We played a couple of warm-up games at the DY patil and we had a good run there. We have 6 batters, 2 all-rounders and 3 bowlers." Indian skipper Suryakumar Yadav also said that they were looking to bat first and said that Sanju Samson, the wicketkeeper-batter, all-rounder Washington Sundar and Jasprit Bumrah, the pace spearhead miss out. Mohammed Siraj, included as a Harshit Rana replacement after the latter's injury, makes his way in to the playing XI. The duo of Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan will open the innings. "We were looking to bat first. Wicket looks good, there is wind around, so we do not expect dew. It is alive even before the game starts, and I am sure it is going to be even better. We have Washi missing out, Sanju missing out. Unfortunately, Bumrah is not well so Siraj is playing," said Suryakumar. India (Playing XI): Ishan Kishan(w), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Rinku Singh, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Varun Chakaravarthy, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj. (ANI)
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