Cricket is back to India. The Legendary Border-Gavaskar trophy ended where the Indians played cricket which will be remembered for centuries. It has been only two weeks and another humongous series is around the corner. The Anthony de Mello trophy is going to overburdened by expectations after following such a beautiful test match series. Both the teams are under immense pressure as this series will determine who plays the World Test Championship finals against New Zealand (who qualified after the cancellation of Australia’s tour of South Africa) at Lord’s.
England would look to repeat their feat in the 2012 tour of India, where Monty Panesar and Kevin Pietersen played mind-numbingly well giving the Poms their first win on Indian soil. As magnificent triumph that was, the Sri Lanka series showed that the English spin attack is borderline average which failed to exploit spinning tracks. We also need to acknowledge the fact that the batting line up is inexperienced and traditionally conditioned to play swing and seam. The debate over Moeen Ali has polarized the English media. The veteran has had a good record against India, however, has had a slump after the 2017 India tour of England. Personally, I believe Moeen should be picked over Bess any day. Apart from the English skipper, there is not a single batsman decent against spin. It would be up to the in-form Joe Root to anchor the innings with the bat.
Indian team, on the other hand, would be elated to have their skipper (Virat Kohli) and frontline pacer (Ishant Sharma) back into the team. However, the hosts will miss Jadeja-Ashwin pair, who dominate the Indian pitches with their marathon spells. As a Kuldeep Yadav fan, I have been waiting for him to get a crack on Indian pitches. The overseas specialist was benched in the Australian series due to an astonishing performance by Ravi Ashwin. The Indian dilemma is deciding who plays after the Australian series, with the full-strength squad back, match-winners like Sundar, Shardul and Siraj maybe showed the bench. India will also have to decide on whether they would stick with Mayank Agarwal, who has a stellar home record with an average about 99 at home or pick the young stallion, Shubman Gill, who courted India to safe shores against Australia. The keeper conundrum still troubles the Indian side as on a spinning pitch Saha is a better gloveman but Pant, who is titled the fourth innings specialist of India, is undeniably the next keeper of India. Do they gamble and place Pant, or play safe with Saha? Here is my playing XI for the first match from the announced squad:
Rohit Sharma
Mayank Agarwal
Cheteshwar Pujara
Virat Kohli ( c )
Ajinkya Rahane
Rishabh Pant ( wk )
Washington Sundar
Ravichandran Ashwin
Kuldeep Yadav
Ishant Sharma
Jasprit Bumrah
*For later tests rotate Umesh Yadav with Jasprit Bumrah.
2012 was a spectacular win but with the current strength English squad, India seems to have an easy win. The Motera stadium will play as an advantage to England as it will be the first time the Indians play on it. Raging turner are the words I wish to hear throughout the series.
