Stung by a narrow loss in the opening encounter, India may to reassess their playing combination while aiming for a swift turnaround when they take on Australia in the second Twenty20 International in Melbourne on Friday, PTI reported.

The hosts took a 1-0 lead in the three-match series, which comprise of three matches in a short span of five days. Having won seven consecutive bilateral T20 series, Kohli and his men will certainly want to make it eight in a row, and for that, they may be forced to rejig both their batting and bowling combinations.

Bidding for an eighth victory on the bounce now doesn’t seem as straightforward a proposition as it looked earlier with the hosts ready to come all guns blazing after their all-round show in the first game.

The Indian batting line-up could see a change keeping in mind KL Rahul’s patchy form. Since scoring 101 not out in the first T20I against England at Manchester, Rahul hasn’t been able to cross the 30-run mark for six matches in a row.

The team management has persisted with him at no 3, benched Manish Pandey and the skipper demoted himself to no 4. The team management could also be tempted to have a another look at the bowling attack. On a grassy surface, Krunal Pandya was plundered for 55 runs from his four wicketless overs, and was hit for as many as half a dozen sixes.

If the MCG is also of Gabba’s nature, Kohli might be tempted to bring in leg spinner Yuzvendra Chahal, who boasts of a brilliant wicket-taking record in T20Is.

Even then, it remains to be seen if the team management rings in any changes after such a close defeat, especially when the balance is disturbed.

Leaving Pandya out would leave them a batsman short and Kohli might not be keen on taking that gamble. The loss, however narrow, has indeed cast such minute doubts on the Indian team’s strategic preparations in a format, which they have dominated since July 2017.

In the lead-up to the first match, skipper Kohli had spoken about the need to cut down on mistakes and regaining an upper hand at crucial junctures of a game. At Brisbane, the Men in Blue were found slacking in the field and it proved to be the difference in a see-saw contest.

Even Kohli was guilty of poor effort on the field on at least two occasions, dropping counterpart Aaron Finch in the fourth over and was later involved in a misfield from the deep.

Australia boasts of bigger grounds than in India, and the MCG will prove to be another humongous challenge in that regard.

It doesn’t help that there is such a short turn-around time during this series, that fielding coach R Sridhar won’t be able to work with the players at the MCG. Any improvements in the field will have to be drilled in theoretically in the dressing room. And thus India will also seek to look at other areas where improvements can be made.

The ploy to introduce Adam Zampa as the lone spinner worked wonders for Australia and with an intense fielding effort, Australia were able to make a winning difference. Things seem very different in the hosts’ camp all of a sudden, when they were considered comfortably second best to the Men in Blue across departments less than 48 hours ago.

Melbourne is experiencing a stormy spell in the latter half of this week, so there is a chance that the second T20I could also be rain-affected.

Squads

India: Virat Kohli (c), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Shreyas Iyer, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Rishabh Pant, Krunal Pandya, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Khaleel Ahmed, Washington Sundar.

Australia: Aaron Finch (c), Ashton Agar, Jason Behrendorff, Alex Carey, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Chris Lynn, Ben McDermott, Glenn Maxwell, D’Arcy Short, Billy Stanlake, Marcus Stoinis, Andrew Tye, Adam Zampa.