England vs India Prediction: Siding with Singh in second IT20

A rain affected No Result got the T20 series underway on Wednesday evening and we are hopeful of a full game on Saturday afternoon but the forecast is not terrific. Jamie Pacheco previews England’s second white-ball game of the summer as India come to town, the match taking place at Old Trafford and starting at 14:30, live on Sky Sports and Free-to-Air on Channel 5.

Jamie only has one bet for this match in what is likely to be a rain-reduced affair and is about to talk you through his choice of Arshdeep Singh...

England  

England didn't have a particularly great game with the ball the other day, with Jofra Archer badly missed. Still, Saqib Mahmood returned good figures of 3-32.  

After a good start that had India in trouble, they allowed Abishek Sharma and Shreyas Iyer to recover and the 189/7 looked a good total in the end. 

Luke Wood is the most likely one to drop out if Archer comes in but the batting – which didn't get a hit – is likely to remain the same.    

India 

Shreyas Iyer found some form the other day after not being in the runs in Ireland, an innings that will silence the critics. For now.  

He hit 68, which unfortunately was a few too many for us, because we had Sharma for top bat and his 59 was just pipped by Iyer.  

They went in with three frontline spinners, a slightly odd choice given the conditions, but maybe a case of playing to your strengths. What was also odd was Harshit Rana coming in ahead of Axar Patel. Axar is a proper batsman, so he should have come in first. Let's see what they do in that regard this time.  

Pitch and conditions. 

We're at Old Trafford for this one so as ever, the first question is: is it likely to rain? 

 The answer is yes, there's roughly a 40% chance of rain towards the start of the match and its forecast for the next few hours, though if a big-name bookmaker rival is to be believed, it's a 1.05 chance we'll have a completed match, though that may involve a reduction in overs.     

Match Winner odds 

4/5 England plays evens on India. So not too different from last time. But then again, we didn't learn much from the other day other than the fact that India recovered well after early setbacks and has some pretty classy players out there. But we knew that anyway.  

So with uncertainty about the weather and whose hands it may play into, we'll leave this market alone. There is actually a toss bias that suggests batting first is the way to go here normally, but as we know, chasing is generally the way to go if there's the chance of having less overs.   

*You can bet on this match and check out all of our England vs India Odds over on betfred.com

Top India Bowler

India are likely to use six bowlers, and the only one we're almost sure will bowl his four is Arshdeep Singh. So that's a good starting point.  

But there's also the fact that overcast, swinging conditions will suit him better than Rana, or the spinners for that matter.  

He also bowls at the beginning and at the end, always an advantage, so Arshdeep it is.  

Jamie Pacheco Cricket P/L 2026: 

• Points Staked: 33.25 
• Points Returned: 36.32 
• Current P/L: +3.07