5 epic clashes to look forward to in the upcoming England-India test series

#1 Virat Kohli vs James Anderson:

The Defining Battle of the English Summer

James Anderson has been a prolific wicket taker for England in tests with 540 wickets from 138 test matches. He gets the ball to do all kinds of stuff when it is swinging early in the innings and also hits the deck well when the ball stops swinging. He mixes up his deliveries nicely by bowling the cutters and the bouncers from time to time which keeps the batsmen guessing.

His ability to extract reverse swing when the ball is old enough, makes him a dangerous customer to handle in subcontinent pitches as well. Anderson was one of the stalwarts of England’s 3-1 win over India in 2014, in which he finished as the leading wicket taker in the series with 25 scalps under his belt and was adjudged as the man of the series.

Indian skipper Virat Kohli has presently established himelf as one of the best batsmen in the world across all formats of the game. Kohli has been scoring runs consistently in all parts of the world over the last few years. The defining moment of his illustrious career came in the 2014 tour of England in which he struggled to negotiate the seam and swing offered by the English tracks.

It was arguably the toughest phase in his career considering the fact that the right hander could only manage scores of 1, 8, 25, 0, 39, 28, 0, 7, 6 and 20 in 10 innings across the 5 test matches played in the tour at a dismal average of 13.40. His weakness outside the off stump was well exploited by the England bowlers. James Anderson in particular, managed to get the ball to talk while bowling to Kohli, getting him to nudge at balls outside the off stump on the front foot as well as on the back foot.

The England seamer accounted for his dismissals on 4 different occasions in the series, managing to get him out caught behind the stumps or in the slip cordon. Kohli, however has matured a lot since the horrendous tour of 2014. He is no longer the same batsmen that he used to be and will look to improve his record against Anderson in England.

The battle between Anderson and Kohli will certainly be the biggest battle to look out for and has been termed as many experts 'The Battle of the Summer'.