India vs England: Visitors opt to field in 3rd ODI as Virat Kohli loses 10 of 12 tosses during tour

Pune, March 28: Virat Kohli continued his toss losing streak as the Indian skipper lost 10 of 12 tosses after England skipper Jos Buttler opted to field in the third ODI and the final game of their tour to India in Pune on Sunday (March 28).

Although it depends on sheer luck, Kohli, also has a poor record when it comes to tosses against England as he has won just 8 of 35 tosses against the reigning world champions as per a Twitter user.

England have now won 10 tosses on this tour, across all formats. Partly a consequence of the schedule, but that is the second most tosses they have ever won in a tour, either home or away - they won 11 against Australia, in 2009.

As for team news for the third ODI, both teams made a change with India bringing in left arm pacer T Natarajan for left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav and England replacing pacer Tom Curran with speedster Mark Wood.

Virat Kohli toss win record vs England
Tests: 2/14
ODIs: 3/10
T20Is: 3/11
Overall: 8/35

In this entire tour, he won just two tosses in 12 matches.#INDvENG

— Deepu Narayanan (@deeputalks) March 28, 2021

After going down 1-0 in the series opener, England made a thrilling comeback in the second ODI to claim a crushing six-wicket win over India on Friday (March 26). So, Kohli and co will now look to make amends in the series-deciding.

At the toss, Buttler said: "We're bowling first, for similar reasons. Very proud of the performance the other day, and it showed our passion. It's important to continue playing the brand of cricket that we played last time. It's been a fantastic tour with some great matches, and we're desperate to win. Mark Wood in for Tom Curran."

India skipper Virat Kohli said: "I would've bowled first again, but it seems like the toss is completely out of my control right now. It's a hard pitch and has some grass covering. We've introspected and identified a few areas that we need to improve on, put up 20-30 more runs with the bat and put up a better show with the ball.

"Our best cricket has come out when our backs have been against the wall - Test series, after being one down and the same in T20s, afer being 1-2 down. We have to be at our best today to win the decider. We have a tactical change: Natarajan comes in for Kuldeep Yadav."

Playing XIs

India XI: Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli(captain), KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant(wicketkeeper), Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Shardul Thakur, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Prasidh Krishna, T Natarajan.

England XI: Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Dawid Malan, Jos Buttler(wicketkeeper/captain), Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Sam Curran, Adil Rashid, Reece Topley, Mark Wood.