Iyer's India open the Lucknow T20 series tonight after a West Indies chase of 352

India and West Indies open a five-match T20 series at the Ekana stadium in Lucknow on Tuesday. The toss is at 6:30pm IST and the match at 7pm. Shreyas Iyer captains India. Shai Hope captains West Indies and keeps wicket. The series moves to Ranchi on 9 October for the second match. In India the games are on JioHotstar.

The one-day series that finished in New Chandigarh on Saturday is the immediate background. India had taken it 2-0. West Indies then chased 352, with Hope unbeaten on 162, their highest successful men's one-day chase. Both sides were later fined for slow over-rates in that game: India 20 percent of its match fee for being four overs short, West Indies 10 percent for being two short, after allowances. Prakash Bhatt imposed the fines. Both captains pleaded guilty. The T20 series starts with that result and those fines still the last official acts of the tour.

Who has been added

India's T20 squad keeps the Asian Games core and adds three players who were with the one-day side: Naman Dhir, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Kuldeep Yadav. Iyer also has Prince Yadav and Mayank Yadav as new-ball options beside Arshdeep Singh. The listed squad is Iyer, Tilak Varma as vice-captain, Abhishek Sharma, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Ishan Kishan, Sanju Samson, Shivam Dube, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Arshdeep Singh, Prince Yadav, Mayank Yadav and Naman Dhir. Two wicketkeepers, Kishan and Samson, are in the 15. Sooryavanshi's inclusion keeps a school-age batter in a senior T20 squad on home soil.

West Indies have named Hope, Jewel Andrew, Roston Chase, Matthew Forde, Shimron Hetmyer, Akeal Hosein, Shamar Joseph, Gudakesh Motie, Keemo Paul, Kamil Pooran, Rovman Powell, Sherfane Rutherford, Quentin Sampson, Romario Shepherd, Shamar Springer and Amir Jangoo. Hope's 162 on Saturday is the form line. Hetmyer, Powell and Rutherford are the other established hitters. Joseph and Shepherd are the pace options the one-day games already showed.

Iyer's side won Asian Games gold in the week before this series. That gold was a separate tournament, with a different selection logic, but several of the same names are in Lucknow. The useful distinction is format. A 20-over game at Ekana in October does not reward the same innings Hope played in New Chandigarh. It does reward the chase temperament West Indies just showed, against an Indian attack that will have Kuldeep for the first time on this leg.

What the fines do not change

The over-rate fines are match-fee penalties under the ICC code, five percent for each over short. They do not suspend anyone for Tuesday. They do sit on the captains who will walk out at 6:30pm. Article 2.22 is the clause. The umpires who laid the charges in New Chandigarh were Jayaraman Madanagopal, Sam Nogajski, Sharfuddoula Ibne Shahid and Virender Sharma. None of that paperwork picks a T20 winner. It does mean the tour's last 50-over day ended in a sanction as well as a chase.

Ekana has been a high-scoring and a slow ground in different seasons. October evenings in Lucknow can take spin. Kuldeep and Bishnoi are the Indian answer to that reading. Axar Patel gives a third spinning option who also bats. If the surface is quicker than that, Prince Yadav and Mayank Yadav are the names Iyer did not have as a pair in the one-day games in the same way. The squad list is the fact. The surface is not public until the captains see it.

Five matches, Lucknow then Ranchi, is a short series by the standard of a full bilateral. It is long enough for Hope's one-day form to be tested in a format that ends an innings at 20 overs, and for Iyer to show whether the Asian Games batting order survives contact with Joseph and Shepherd. The first answer is due after 7pm.