In less than a week, England Bazballers will be facing their toughest assignment as they take on India in their backyard. The backyard of dry, bunsen, spin-friendly surfaces on which all teams have succumbed to the might of R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja over the past decade.
India have not lost a single Test series at home in the last 11 years and have lost only three Test matches in this period. England can take some confidence from the fact that the last country to win a Test series in India is England, in 2012; that Joe Root’s side recorded a Test win in Chennai on their previous trip in 2021. And also that India is a team in transition who conceded a loss in Indore last year to Australia.
With a few young players trying to cement their spots in the Test XI and Mohammed Shami injured, it seems this is the best chance to win a Test series in India in the past 8 years.
But India are hungrier. Rohit Sharma’s unit, which lost the WTC Final last year and missed the chance of winning a first-ever Test series in South Africa recently, would be licking their lips to invite the audacious, aggressive, intent-filled batters of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum. Not to forget, there are crucial World Test Championship (WTC) points at stake.
India will have a conundrum to decide their batting order. It is believed that the management wants KL Rahul to play only as a specialist batsman. Rahul returned to the Test XI as a wicketkeeper in South Africa and notched up a brilliant century. But with the spin-friendly surfaces providing a bigger challenge to keep wicket to, India are likely to opt for KS Bharat, a specialist wicket-keeper with years of experience keeping wicket on such surfaces.
This would then mean that either Shubman Gill or Shreyas Iyer would have to make way for KS Bharat. Both Gill and Iyer struggled in South Africa. Iyer is known to be a specialist of spinners, but will India push Gill away from the number 3 spot after giving him that place only a few innings ago?
In the pace department, India won’t be worried about Shami’s absence because they have Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj available, and in home games, India generally plays with or needs only two seamers.
The talks about the spin department will hog the selection meeting. Do India pick all four spinners or three? If the latter, then who would be the third spinner: Kuldeep Yadav or Axar Patel?
The Hyderabad surface is known to play out decently for the batters in the first couple of days before it starts to break down.
Predicting India’s Playing XI for first Test vs England:
Rohit Sharma (C)
Shubman Gill/Shreyas Iyer
Virat Kohli
KL Rahul
KS Bharat (wk)
Ravindra Jadeja
Axar Patel
R Ashwin
Mohammed Siraj
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