T20 World Cup warm-up: India win toss, opt to bowl first against England; Virat Kohli confirms his batting position

Team India skipper Virat Kohli won the toss and chose to bowl first against England in their first warm-up game of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2021. Kohli said that the idea is to create some energy and momentum playing alongside each other after playing against each other for the last month and fielding is the best place to start with 11 players on the field together.

Hello & welcome from Dubai for #TeamIndia's first warm-up game against England 

 Toss Update

India have won the toss and elected to bowl.#INDvENG #T20WorldCup pic.twitter.com/pxeCNoGj2C

— BCCI (@BCCI) October 18, 2021

Asked about their combination, Kohli said, "Now it's difficult to look beyond KL Rahul at the top of the order. Rohit is a no-brainer. World-class player, he's been solid up front. I will be batting at 3. That's the only news I can give to start off."

Wicket-keeper batter Jos Buttler was leading the England side as Eoin Morgan was rested after having played in the IPL final a couple of days ago. Buttler said that everyone was excited to get back together and hoped that it gives some other guys opportunities in absence of Morgan.

Not just Morgan, Tom Curran, Sam Billings and Tymal Mills missed out as well, while Rohit Sharma and Varun Chakravarthy were not playing for India from their 15.

England XI: Jason Roy, Jos Buttler(w/c), Dawid Malan, Jonny Bairstow, Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, David Willey, Chris Jordan, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood

India 13 (11 batting, 11 bowling): KL Rahul, Ishan Kishan, Virat Kohli(c), Rishabh Pant(w), Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Ravichandran Ashwin, Rahul Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami