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

[Arthur Crabtree]

1962. Contractor/Pataudi jr. and Worrell were the skippers.

Prasanna played for India, surprisingly early.

[bigfluffylemon]

Anderson's out. Sounds as if he's a doubtful for the whole series. That's really not going to help.

Geez, that's a punishing schedule. The first three test matches in three weeks, one week off, then two games in the next two weeks? No wonder England are rotating the squad.

5-0 is not an unlikely outcome, but I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say a single win would be a mighty achievement (or that a 3-1 loss would be respectable for that matter). England are not that bad a team that they shouldn't be setting their targets realistically higher than that. Inconsistent yes, but not bad. That's not to say they'll achieve it, India are an excellent team at home, and England will struggle in the conditions, no doubt. But I don't think we should be happy if the best we can do is avoid a whitewash. We have two world class batsmen, a world class pace attack and some considerable depth to batting (which is fortunate, given its brittle nature). Surely that's got to count for something, even though India rightly start as strong favourites.

[bigfluffylemon]

It's past monsoon season, so rain is unlikely to be a factor at most of the venues. Chennai possibly, but there's a reason it's last in the order - gets a lot drier there after November.

[hopeforthebest]

The squad from BD will also be going to India.

[meninblue]

It's past monsoon season, so rain is unlikely to be a factor at most of the venues. Chennai possibly, but there's a reason it's last in the order - gets a lot drier there after November.

No rainfall in Mumbai since last month as monsoon season is over.

[shankycricket]

Vizag may be England's best chance for a washout. Surprised they scheduled it so early. Should've been in December after Chennai.

[Red Devil]

Hopefully India have been paying attention to the tests in Bangladesh. Eng seamers look dangerous when it reverses.

India should produce pitches that turn from day 1 but don't deteriorate too badly, so that good spinners will always be on top. They should also leave a very lush outfield to negate reverse as far as possible. If we do that, then we should go with 3 spinners (Ashwin, Jadeja and Mishra) and probably just one seamer. We can keep Rohit in to have the extra batting depth.

Rahul, Vijay, Pujara, Kohli, Rahane, Rohit, Ashwin, Saha, Jadeja, Mishra, Shami - should do the trick.

[shankycricket]

Yadav/Ishant will play ahead of Mishra I think. Though I agree with your team. Bhuvneshwar if the track is like Eden Gardens vs NZ (highly unlikely they take the risk against England) Kuldeep Yadav could also be a good option as the 3rd spinner.

[Aidan11]

India are probably watching our series at present and rubbing their hands with glee.


We are going to be sitting ducks.

[meninblue]

Is experiment of Alex Hales as opener over or is it that he was injured for Bangladesh tour.

[Aidan11]

Is experiment of Alex Hales as opener over or is it that he was injured for Bangladesh tour.

He refused to tour on safety grounds.


I doubt he'll be in for India but he may still have a chance next summer.

[Making_Splinters]

By not touring Bangladesh, Hales dropped himself from the Test team, which has been confirmed given we're taking the same squad to India.

I said at the time it was a puzzling thing for Hales to do, unless he had already been told his time as a Test opener was over given he'll come straight back into the ODI side.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Is experiment of Alex Hales as opener over or is it that he was injured for Bangladesh tour.

The England head selector said Hales would have been dropped anyway. So he's out the picture for the time being.

[Dr Cricket]

Think england need one more warm up game just to find best 11 still.
wonder if they can schedule one in Rajkot or Mumbai, shouldn't be to hard finding 11 players in india.
not really sure why ECB thought having no warm up games was a good idea.

[Aidan11]

Think england need one more warm up game just to find best 11 still.
wonder if they can schedule one in Rajkot or Mumbai, shouldn't be to hard finding 11 players in india.
not really sure why ECB thought having no warm up games was a good idea.

The words "ECB" and "Good idea" have never sat well together.