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India's new selection committee have declared the team for first two tests.

Rohit, Shubman, Mayank, Chet, Virat, Ajinkya, Rishabh, Saha, Hardik, Rahul, Jasprit, Ishant, Siraj, Shardul, Ashwin, Kuldeep, Sundar, Azar.

meninblue wrote:India's new selection committee have declared the team for first two tests.

Rohit, Shubman, Mayank, Chet, Virat, Ajinkya, Rishabh, Saha, Hardik, Rahul, Jasprit, Ishant, Siraj, Shardul, Ashwin, Kuldeep, Sundar, Azar.

XI of Rohit, Shubman, Pujara, Kohli, Rahane, Pant, Ashwin, Axar, Washington or Shardul, Ishant, Bumrah?

Eng have named their squad for the first 2 tests as well ... Joe Root (capt), Jofra Archer, Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Dom Bess, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler*, Zak Crawley, Ben Foakes, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Dom Sibley, Ben Stokes, Olly Stone, Chris Woakes

Red Devil wrote:

meninblue wrote:India's new selection committee have declared the team for first two tests.

Rohit, Shubman, Mayank, Chet, Virat, Ajinkya, Rishabh, Saha, Hardik, Rahul, Jasprit, Ishant, Siraj, Shardul, Ashwin, Kuldeep, Sundar, Azar.

XI of Rohit, Shubman, Pujara, Kohli, Rahane, Pant, Ashwin, Axar, Washington or Shardul, Ishant, Bumrah?

Rishabh might be dropped for Saha. With Virat you never know. He has habit of making selection blunders.

I wonder how much England might turn their eye to players who have greater experience of the IPL for this series. Might be good news for Moeen and Curran.

Can they open?

The Professor wrote:I wonder how much England might turn their eye to players who have greater experience of the IPL for this series. Might be good news for Moeen and Curran.

Completely different pitches for Tests.

meninblue wrote:Rishabh might be dropped for Saha. With Virat you never know. He has habit of making selection blunders.

Dropping Pant would be madness. He averages 43 with the bat, which more than gets him into the team on batting alone, and hes coming off a successful tour where he played two massive innings that controlled the destiny of the series. He also has scored 92 in both innings in India hes played, so his home form could be scary.

Slipstream wrote:

The Professor wrote:I wonder how much England might turn their eye to players who have greater experience of the IPL for this series. Might be good news for Moeen and Curran.

Completely different pitches for Tests.

It wouldnt suprise me if every single person in the squad gets a go at some point. Maybe Foakes being the exception with two other keeper bats that the selectors seem to rate over him consistently, but certainly I can imagine bad starts making quite a lot of players vulnerable, and Broad and Anderson are almost certainly not going to play all 4 matches together.

The mammoth task that England face in this series cannot be underestimated. I for one wont really be taking the final series score much in the way of rating the performance, really this is about England fronting up in the form of some competitiveness. If they get Whitewashed to me its ok, so long as they play well and make India work for each test.

India on paper are a strong team, but when you take into account home records only they morph into some behemoth. Since the start of 2016 (last 5 years).

Sharma - Average 101 at home
Kohli - Average 86 at home
Pujara - 57
Agwaral - 100
Pant - 92
Rahul -45
Nair - 62
Shaw - 119
Parthiv - 65
Dhawan - 46
Rahane - 40
Vijay - 47
Pandya - 71
Jadeja -48
Saha - 38
Karthik - 4 (one innings only and only played in a B team fielder for the Afghanistan test)

Pick the weakness in that list. Of course some samples are small in many cases, but more importantly, when combined together they simply show that Indian bats rarely fail, regardless of who they put out. And its easy to disregard in normal cases the Indian batsman capacity in other conditions when assessing them generally, but at home that context disappears.

Perfect example - Rohit Sharma. Take a list of all players to score at least 1000 runs at home, who averages the most? Well, Bradman of course. Who's second? Rohit. Not that far behind, and a clear 11 runs per innings ahead of Headley in third. Say what you want about him, not test class, cant play away.... at home he maintains a performance in his career that only one person can match. Thats what England have to get past. And once yet get past him, the guy coming in next has the next best home average ever recorded from a player who played as many tests as Bradman, Kohli. Of course this assumes you get past Pujara already, who is right there at the top of the list too.

This is one hell of a powerful batting unit to get through. And when you look at bowlers who have gotten through, its very limited. Australia in 17 got two tests on pitches that were lotteries. They won one test (I think its the only test they lost at home to Kohli) on a pitch barely fit for test cricket (O Keefe took 12/60 or something ridiculous like that) bowling out India twice for a 100. But India learnt their lessons, they arent going to serve up a lottery pitch ever again.

England's last tour really stands out as a sort of warning. Anderson did nothing (4 wickets in 6 innings). Stokes had one innings where he knocked over a few then did nothing in the next 3 tests. Broad's figures look deceptively ok, but in reality he took all his wickets while India were declaration batting, then did nothing (England missed the follow on score by 1 and India wanted to get on with it). Moeen Ali was slaughtered, Rashid did ok, but the sort of ok in context of a trouncing series. Averaging just under 40 as the main threat of an attack is not winning you a test in India.

So its hard to see how the maths can be shuffled. India's weaknesses at home turn to strengths, England's weaknesses will be exposed and their strengths nullified on these pitches.

The real worry will be the lack of runs. Moeen Ali's career has crumbled since our last tour to India, but he was the star batsman last time out, with 2 centuries and average of 62. No one else really put in series winning performances, although Root did well. Stokes did ok, but this was the series where he got the most luck anyone could possibilty manage (in the space of three tests he was dropped staggering amounts of times, the keeper dropped three stumpings, the ball hit the wicket without dislodging a bail, India missed more than one easy run out.....)

It doesnt bode well. England need to somehow make up over a 100 run deficit on both sides of the game.

If they avoid total annihilation they have done a pretty good job.

sussexpob wrote: Maybe Foakes being the exception with two other keeper bats that the selectors seem to rate over him consistently

If I understand it correctly, Bairstow is not in the squad for the first 2 tests and Buttler is returning home after the first test, so I guess Foakes has to play in test 2 at least

sussexpob wrote:

meninblue wrote:Rishabh might be dropped for Saha. With Virat you never know. He has habit of making selection blunders.

Dropping Pant would be madness. He averages 43 with the bat, which more than gets him into the team on batting alone, and hes coming off a successful tour where he played two massive innings that controlled the destiny of the series. He also has scored 92 in both innings in India hes played, so his home form could be scary.

Indeed the news that Saha would be first choice keeper and Rishabh will be preferred for away test doing rounds.

Now, perhaps due to backlash, the think tank seems to have decided that Rishabh needs to be played at home series.


As you rightly mentioned in other post, Indian batsmen are big innings scorers in home tests. England should prepare to field for 140-180 overs innings. The 4 man bowling attack strategy will have a huge risk when bowling to Indian batsmen at home.

meninblue wrote:As you rightly mentioned in other post, Indian batsmen are big innings scorers in home tests. England should prepare to field for 140-180 overs innings. The 4 man bowling attack strategy will have a huge risk when bowling to Indian batsmen at home.

Ben Stokes will bowl, of course, and honest Joe is no mug with ball in hand

Great news for cricket in Eng that this series will be free to watch on TV on channel 4 which will hopefully mean that lots of youngsters will be watching cricket

Red Devil wrote:Great news for cricket in Eng that this series will be free to watch on TV on channel 4 which will hopefully mean that lots of youngsters will be watching cricket

Is it? That is pretty amazing