The India-England Test series opener promises to be an engaging contest when an in-transition Indian squad meet a mercurial England team at Headingley on Friday. India’s 45-day campaign unfolds with a new captain, a determined coach, some experienced players and a few fresh faces. The challenge ahead is formidable, considering that just three Indian teams under the captaincy of Ajit Wadekar (1971), Kapil Dev (1986) and Rahul Dravid (2007) have won a Test series in England in the past 90 years.
Minus the experienced Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, India’s batting line-up has quite a task ahead of it. The 25-year-old captain, Shubman Gill, is expected to lead from the front against an England side which has redefined the conventions of batting in Test matches under Brendon McCullum’s tutelage and Ben Stokes’ captaincy. Having taken over as India's 37th Test captain more on account of the expectations from him than his achievements in the traditional format, Gill will have a lot to prove.
The 8mm grass-topped surface at Headingley may not be what England's proverbial “Bazballers” would love, but it would definitely test the ability of batsmen of both the teams to handle pressure. An unusually warm Leeds with the maximum temperature predicted to be 29 degrees on Friday could, of course, make things a tad easier for batters.
The contrast between the top batsmen of the two sides is evident with Joe Root, having scored more than 13,000 Test runs and 36 hundreds, far outweighing India’s most experienced batsman KL Rahul, who has just 3,257 runs to his credit. India will rely heavily on Jasprit Bumrah to put England batsmen on their toes, although the premier pacer is available for only three Tests.
Even without batting stalwarts Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, India can take the battle to England’s pace attack, considering that England now lack quality bowlers like James Anderson and Stuart Broad. The names of Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue and Shoaib Bashir do not really make the opposition ranks anxious.
It remains to be seen whether head coach Gautam Gambhir will play an extra batsman and give B Sai Sudharsan a chance to wear his maiden Test cap, or play all-rounders Nitish Reddy and Shardul Thakur to make up for the absence of an extra specialist batsman. Kuldeep Yadav is another option as he is a big turner of the ball, but then Ravindra Jadeja is a useful batter at No. 7, apart from being a skilful left-arm spinner. Another tough choice that Gambhir could face is opting between T20 specialist Arshdeep Singh as third seamer depending on conditions and the promising Prasidh Krishna. Akash Deep can also prove to be a good substitute for Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj in these conditions.
Meanwhile, England have already announced their playing 11, which is a bit batting-heavy with Woakes coming in at No.8. But much of England’s batting will also depend on how Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett fare against Bumrah and Siraj. Many feel that the encounter between Root and Bumrah in three of the five matches could influence the outcome of the series.
Squads: England (playing XI): Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (C), Jamie Smith (WK), Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue and Shoaib Bashir.
India: Shubman Gill (C), Rishabh Pant (VC & WK), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana.
Match Starts: 3:30 pm IST.
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