5 key battles that will decide the India vs England Test series

2. Joe Root vs India’s spinners

To be perfectly frank, India’s second string pace attack (missing Bhuvi and Bumrah) will not trouble one of the best batsmen in the world in Joe Root. Root averages 98.33 in test matches against the pace trio of Yadav, Sharma and Shami (collected and collated from CricMetric).

Even against Australia and New Zealand where Root ‘struggled’ (based on his own stratospheric standards), he was mainly dismissed by truly excellent bowlers like Mitchell Starc, Tim Southee and Trent Boult. Yadav, Sharma and Shami do not belong to the same class.

Thus, India will need their spinners to perform in traditionally pace-friendly conditions to stop Root from scoring freely and heavily.

India’s spin attack still remains in question as Kuldeep Yadav, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja will be competing for a few spots. Root has brilliant technique against spin but can be troubled by balls spinning away from him. Thus Jadeja might be ideal against Root, having taken his wicket five times on previous occasions.

However, Ashwin or Kuldeep may be preferred to Jadeja (as India are likely to go with only one spinner). In this case, Kuldeep might be a better choice considering that his googly goes away from the right-hander and he can trouble England’s batsmen.

While Root picked Kuldeep from the hand in the ODI series, he has enough variations up his sleeve to come up with something new. Usually spinners are used as defensive options in England. If India want to get Root’s wicket quickly, then they will need to use their spinner as a wicket-taking option.