Cuttack, Feb 9: The toss yet again went in favour of England, who elected to bat first, at the iconic Barabati Stadium here in Cuttack, Sunday.

India made a couple of changes to their playing XI with Virat Kohli and Varun Chakravarthy being named in the team. England, on the other hand, have included Mark Wood, Gus Atkinson and Jamie Overton in places of Jofra Archer, Brydon Carse and Jacob Bethell.

Earlier, mystry spinner Varun was presented his first ODI cap from Ravindra Jadeja. Varun has now become the second oldest Indian to make his debut in ODIs at 33 years and 164 days. Farokh Engineer (36y 138d) is the oldest Indian to make his debut in ODIs.

Varun picked up 14 wickets in the T20 series against England at an average of 9.85, which led to his inclusion in the Indian squad for the ODIs.

Pitch report

Square boundaries are very short -- 63m and 64m on either side -- and even shorter behind the wicket. Although the flat pitch and small dimensions suggest a high-scoring game, but it will all depend on how the pitch behaves given there already cracks.

During the pitch report, both Deep Dasgupta and Graeme Swann said that the pitch isn’t that hard as it looked. Both have predicted spin may come into play in the second half of the first innings. The second half may favour the pacers considering dew factor and the flatness of the pitch.

Both the former cricketers also said that the pitch may offer less bounce compared to Nagpur.

read more Sports News