India eye series win as Tilak Varma looks for quality batting time

The stylish Tilak Varma wouldnt mind some quality batting time before his possible exit from the playing eleven as the Indian team aims to take an unassailable lead in the IND vs AUS 3rd T20I on TuesdayShreyas Iyer who was given a weeks rest after the World Cup final will join the squad for the last two games in Raipur and Bengaluru taking vicecaptaincy duties from Ruturaj GaikwadThat effectively means that Iyer will walk into the playing XI and there is a strong possibility that he will replace Tilak The replacement has more to do with combination rather than formAfter nearflawless batting performance in backtoback games the newlook Indian team would like to keep its foot firmly on the pedal on a Barsapara Stadium track that has traditionally been a batting belter And there is no reason to think that the 22yard strip is any different this time alsoThe 40000 spectators expected to fill up the stands would expect a runfeast from the talented Indian batting unit which would want to add to the 36 boundaries and 24 maximums it has collectively hit across the two gamesFor Australia some of their senior players like Steve Smith Glenn Maxwell Marcus Stoinis and Adam Zampa have been in India for nine weeks and fatigue is showing They need considerable rest before their next assignmentsAlso ReadThis too shall passAll the four will play in Big Bash League next month For Smith the Pakistan Test series would be his next international assignmentIndias toporder has ticked all the boxes with Yashasvi Jaiswal Ruturaj Gaikwad and skipper Suryakumar Yadav hitting at a halfcentury eachIshan Kishan showing no signs of rustiness even after spending nearly five and half weeks on the World Cup bench has got two half centuries under his beltRinku Singh with two superb rearguard knocks has consolidated his status as designated finisher in this format and is slowly ensuring a permanent No6 slot for him in this batting order ahead of the T20 World CupHowever Tilak who has not missed any of Indias last 12 T20 Internationals is in a tricky place as he bats No5 and he faced just 12 deliveries in the last two gamesIn the first game he scored 12 runs off 10 balls with two boundaries in a chase of 209 In the second game in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday he faced the final two deliveries of the Indian innings as Rinku was promoted ahead of him to give the final pushIt would be interesting to see if skipper Suryakumar himself drops a place down in the batting order and gives his younger colleague a chance to play few more balls and get some runs under his belt before Iyer comes calling in the next game in RaipurConsidering the nature of tracks on offer Indian bowlers put up a far improved performance in the second game after conceding 208 runs in the seriesopenerWhile the dot ball count in the first two games remained nearly the same 45 in the first and 44 in the second what has significantly improved is the decrease in boundary percentage while defending in dewladen conditions in ThiruvananthapuramFrom being hit for 24 fours in the first game the same Indian attack cut it down to half in the next gameAlso Read When obsession knows no boundsPrasidh Krishna after being creamed by Jos Inglis and Steve Smith in Visakhapatnam made a strong comeback with three wickets in his second spellHowever one needs to also factor in that Prasidh was bowling with a cushion of a mammoth target of 235 He was not under pressureEven the normally profligate Arshdeep Singh for a change nailed his blockhole deliveries during death oversSquadsIndia Suryakumar Yadav captain Ruturaj Gaikwad vicecaptain Ishan Kishan Yashasvi Jaiswal Tilak Varma Rinku Singh Jitesh Sharma wk Washington Sundar Axar Patel Shivam Dubey Ravi Bishnoi Arshdeep Singh Prasidh Krishna Avesh Khan Mukesh KumarAustralia Matthew Wade captain Aaron Hardie Jason Behrendorff Sean Abbott Tim David Nathan Ellis Travis Head Josh Inglis Glenn Maxwell Tanveer Sangha Matt Short Steve Smith Marcus Stoinis Kane Richardson Adam ZampaWith agency inputs