England must solve Kuldeep conundrum with series on the line

Overview
England v India
Lord’s, London
2nd ODI
Saturday 14 July, 11:00am local

Kuldeep, who took the best-ever figures (6/25) for a spinner in an ODI in England, and Sharma, who struck a typically graceful century, were India's stars in their eight-wicket trouncing of Eoin Morgan's side and the hosts must act decisively if they are to avoid a repeat performance and a series defeat.

If the visitors claim victory at Lord's the series will be sealed and they will be one win away from taking top spot from England in the MRF Tyres ICC ODI Team Rankings.

Morgan acknowledged that the wrist-spin of Kuldeep "exposes an area of our game we need to improve upon" but also said he didn't expect the 23-year-old to be quite such a threat on the surface at Lord's as he had been at Trent Bridge.

Both sides are expected to keep the same side: India understandably keen not to break a winning formula, and England confident in their players' abilities to bounce back from Thursday's disappointment.

Alex Hales has been ruled out for the whole series with a side strain and been replaced by Dawid Malan but England will keep faith in a batting unit that has fired consistently in recent times.

Despite being dropped for the final match of the T20I series and scoring just 3 at Trent Bridge, there is no suggestion that Root's place in the 50-over side is under threat.

Key playersJoe Root (England): Root's job is to anchor the innings and keep England ticking along, and it's a job he has done superbly during his ODI career which now spans 114 matches. Nonetheless, he has been short of runs of late and is searching for a confidence-boosting score, particularly with a much-anticipated Test series around the corner. He has failed to pass 50 in each of his last eight innings for England across all formats, something he will be looking to rectify at Lord's.

**Kuldeep Yadav (India):**With India's seamers failing to make an early breakthrough and England negotiating the leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal reasonably comfortably, there was no doubting the decisive factor at Trent Bridge. Virat Kohli used Kuldeep very smartly, bringing him into the attack whenever he wanted a wicket, and on each occasion it worked. In this form, the wrist-spinner may well have his eye on a late call-up for the Test squad.

Conditions

A hot day is expected in North London. Temperatures are set to peak at around 26 degrees and there is very little chance of rain.

Squads

**England:**Eoin Morgan (c), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Jake Ball, Jos Buttler (wk), Sam Curran, Alex Hales, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, David Willey, Mark Wood

**India:**Virat Kohli (c), Yuzvendra Chahal, Shikhar Dhawan, MS Dhoni (wk), Shreyas Iyer, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Siddarth Kaul, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, KL Rahul, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav