England Versus India - 1st Test (9 Nov - 13 Nov)

[Dr Cricket]

We are likely to play 3 spinners considering the way England batted today.

I would like Virat to play 6 + 5 combo.

with Saha as one of the 6?

Saha can bat in these conditions . Then we have Ashwin who has test hundreds and 50's. Jaddu. Virat has played 6+5 before and this series will again be ideal opportunity to play that combo.

think he depend on the conditons if the pitches are flat 5 bowlers if the pitch turning and expected to take wicket 4 bowlers with Rohit playing.

Those days when Saurav used to open bowling in some tests and we could play 3 spinners.

Rohit will not get to bat in 10 innings. But our bowler is very likely to bowl in 10 innings.

think the idea is that they will pack the side with batsman so they are more likely to score 300 in most innings and outbat england even if they lose wickets and with jadeja and ashwin capable of bowling all day they don't need 5 wicket plus think kohli realised having more option when not required is pointless, he did lose a test in sri lanka because Ashwin and jadeja bowled less over than required and over bowled 3rd spinner and pace men.

TBH what ever india goes with they will get 20 wickets and be so more threatening and economical than england will do.

[meninblue]

We cant be complacent, we lost against them when they toured here. But yes absence of Monty and Swann is giving me lot of releif. Michael Clarke took 6 for 9, so Moeen or Gareth can also bowl a match winning spell. But i still expect us to win the series.

[meninblue]

Our batsmen are grown with the tactic of scoring big first innings score and then the Ranji match is almost won once that happens. Still i think our 5 batters can put a big score backed by lower order.

[Dr Cricket]

We cant be complacent, we lost against them when they toured here. But yes absence of Monty and Swann is giving me lot of releif. Michael Clarke took 6 for 9, so Moeen or Gareth can also bowl a match winning spell. But i still expect us to win the series.

Think winning the series is 99% likely very unlikely of england winning 2 or 3 test.
but agree always a 10% chance England play well and get a draw or win.
if they get in a roll they could do a lords 2014 victory but for that to happen bowling needs to improve and batting needs to click, but they really need a good start and docile pitch like India got in trent bridge plus they need good confidence from past matches.
lets not forget india were still in a high or kind of a high because of pushing SA and NZ close away from home and didn't really suffer any bad defeats yet.

Bangladesh winning was huge and even cook admitted he isn't sure if the players could recover from it yet.
if england won 2-0 they would be more worried of them getting in a roll though.

[Dr Cricket]

Our batsmen are grown with the tactic of scoring big first innings score and then the Ranji match is almost won once that happens. Still i think our 5 batters can put a big score backed by lower order.

I be honest don't really have much faith in the batting, they haven't really batted well as a group in india yet.
only really Rahane and Vijay look trust worthy, Pujara got the ability but been mucked around with lately so doesn't really score runs consistently and then Kohli and Rohit are too flashy and can score low scores all the time.
kohli in particular been annoying lately with the bat.

[meninblue]

Our batsmen are grown with the tactic of scoring big first innings score and then the Ranji match is almost won once that happens. Still i think our 5 batters can put a big score backed by lower order.

I be honest don't really have much faith in the batting, they haven't really batted well as a group in india yet.
only really Rahane and Vijay look trust worthy, Pujara got the ability but been mucked around with lately so doesn't really score runs consistently and then Kohli and Rohit are too flashy and can score low scores all the time.
kohli in particular been annoying lately with the bat.

2 double hundreds this year.

[Dr Cricket]

Our batsmen are grown with the tactic of scoring big first innings score and then the Ranji match is almost won once that happens. Still i think our 5 batters can put a big score backed by lower order.

I be honest don't really have much faith in the batting, they haven't really batted well as a group in india yet.
only really Rahane and Vijay look trust worthy, Pujara got the ability but been mucked around with lately so doesn't really score runs consistently and then Kohli and Rohit are too flashy and can score low scores all the time.
kohli in particular been annoying lately with the bat.

2 double hundreds this year.

nothing in between though which is really what worries me.
he scores hundred or nothing really.

[Dr Cricket]

this year 10 innings 2 hundred so he scored close to 50% of his runs in two innings.
6 scores below 20 as well.
that what worries me the most he can easily average close to 10-20 over 3-5 test.
he already had a poor series once and averages 20 against england over 9 test.

[meninblue]

Our batsmen are grown with the tactic of scoring big first innings score and then the Ranji match is almost won once that happens. Still i think our 5 batters can put a big score backed by lower order.

I be honest don't really have much faith in the batting, they haven't really batted well as a group in india yet.
only really Rahane and Vijay look trust worthy, Pujara got the ability but been mucked around with lately so doesn't really score runs consistently and then Kohli and Rohit are too flashy and can score low scores all the time.
kohli in particular been annoying lately with the bat.

Yes, even in absence of Monty and Swann they may get the odd win, but series is very likely ours given their spin quality now. They had Mushy and Saqlain as spin bowling coach ? but they havent thought fo flight

[meninblue]

this year 10 innings 2 hundred so he scored close to 50% of his runs in two innings.
6 scores below 20 as well.
that what worries me the most he can easily average close to 10-20 over 3-5 test.
he already had a poor series once and averages 20 against england over 9 test.

But when he wil flop someone else will be in form in that test.

[Dr Cricket]

looks like bayliss isn't happy with the india preparations.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2016 ... -in-the-c/
"No wonder Trevor Bayliss is silently dismayed that England have no practice games before or during the Test series in India. England’s head coach is expected to come up with instant solutions to revive a culture which was allowed to die out steadily from the early 1990s, when almost every county fielded two specialist spinners."

probably first major tour to never have an warm up game for all team, crazy that a team playing 5 test got no practice game.

[Making_Splinters]

If we'd won the Bangladesh series he wouldn't be complaining. It's just an attempt to scapegoat before the series has even begun. Given nobody, and I mean nobody, expects England to beat India it's slightly novel to be trying to come up with excuses at this stage in proceedings.

[Dr Cricket]

If we'd won the Bangladesh series he wouldn't be complaining. It's just an attempt to scapegoat before the series has even begun. Given nobody, and I mean nobody, expects England to beat India it's slightly novel to be trying to come up with excuses at this stage in proceedings.

it probably depends if he made the complaint before the tour, at the moment looks like england are panicking trying to sort out last minute club cricket deal which then Reg Dickinson blocks on security reason.
So sussexpop was probably right why england players don't play Club cricket in india considering it is quite risky for a famous player to play cricket in the out grounds in india.

they got a bit of an issue with Anderson and few of the bench player, they want them to play games but england or england lions don't play any games during the test, lions first game is when the 2nd or 3rd test starts.

Think Anderson is the player they want playing club cricket in india.
Anderson is supposedly fit right now but needs to play games to show his fitness and guess what England don't play any games, think I read one article saying he facetiming Strauss to show how fit he is in the nets at old trafford.

if they do make this excuse would be the lamest excuse ever considering Dobell and others are stating England were the ones refusing the warm up games to get more rest.
Dobell was quite adamant before that england didn't want the warm up games and was quite confused by Bayliss comments at the time.

[Dr Cricket]

Really didn't make sense for ECB to have the lions setup delayed till dec-feb considering england don't play any major games till june.
they essentially played 5 or 6 test before the lions actually do anything meaningful to the england senior team.
wasn't the whole point of the lions setup being to play games close to the test team so reinforcement can have some game time.
really baffling to have a major test series with the reserve having no game time and being lumbered with a squad the captain or coach clearly want now.
Cook/bayliss didn't exactly sound confident on the squad today.

[bigfluffylemon]

To be honest, I can't see one or two 2 day games against crappy club second XIs that usually constitutes a pre-series 'warm up' being a worthwhile warm-up compared to two test matches in similar conditions to those in India and featuring good spinners. Those two test matches should have been good preparation. England are the ones who agreed to this utterly ridiculous schedule, they've made a rod for their own backs.

(By the way, I'm not having a dig at India here - tour/warm-up matches the world over are being undermined because the club sides are almost invariably understrength, whether deliberately or just because they can't persuade them to make good players available. Once upon a time, for example, the PM's XI Australia tour game was an audition for the ODI series, with players on the fringes of selection playing. Now it's generally a bunch of 19 year olds and B-grade cricketers who can't even make the squad for their state's Big Bash team. Ok rant over).