India’s chance at glory in UK

#1. Strengths

Third Test: England v India - Day Five

Second away cycle

Every away tour normally follows a 4 year cycle. Hence, you will find that very few players manage to reach the second cycle and only few of the best get to the third which means that the player has played for over a decade. Fortunately for India, almost all of the key players who featured in the 2014 series form the core of the current team as well: Vijay, Pujara, Dhawan, Kohli, Rahane, Ashwin and Jadeja.

It is always difficult to fight the conditions, and the prime example is Virat Kohli’s performance in 2014. This bunch would look to make the most of their learning from their previous stint and capitalize this time around. Stalwarts like Dravid, Tendulkar & Ganguly scored 602, 401 and 351 averaging 100.33, 66.83 and 58.5 respectively on their second tour to England, and India can look to their senior players to show a similar increase in performance.

Missing piece of the puzzle

On numerous occasions India has fallen short of a victory by a whisker only due to the fact that they did not possess the fifth weapon to complement the main four. In 2013, Indian team had missed a golden opportunity to win in South Africa as their four bowlers started tiring and did not have a good fifth bowler to share their load.

Often, India has tried playing an extra fast bowler to show their commitment towards taking twenty wickets but in the challenging conditions you always need a cushion of an extra batsman. Hence, the balance that Hardik Pandya brings in to the side is invaluable. His recent exploits in Cape Town where he scored a valuable 90 and took two key wickets in a day to keep India in hunt supports my point.

Stuart Binny, not as quick and not as good a batsman as Pandya, was tried in 2014 without much rewards. Ashwin and Jadeja can definitely chip in as the 7th batsman but having a fast bowling all-rounder is a must in away conditions.

Potent bowling attack

Undoubtedly, this is one of the fastest bowling group the country has ever produced. All 4 Shami, Umesh, Ishant and Bumrah are capable of clocking 140 kmph with ease and make life uncomfortable for batsmen. In past, India always had one bowler who was the leader of the pack but missed the support to keep the pressure going on from both the ends.

Zaheer’s injury in 2011 series was certainly one of the darkest episodes of that abysmal tour. Not only the fast bowling group, even the spin attack is capable of sending alarms with a good mixture of experience by the name of Ashwin, skills by the name of Jadeja and mystery by the name of Kuldeep Yadav.

Is this England?

One of the popular South Indian celebrity recently put on Instagram that it is very hot in London. If a South Indian is complaining about the heat, then rest assured English must be melting. It has been over fifty years since this region has recorded such high temperatures. This bodes well for India as this dry weather might make the playing surfaces more abrasive and will bring spinners more into the game & will definitely make batting a lot easier.

Acclimatizing to the conditions

Often in recent years, teams have complained about not getting enough matches before the test series begins. Always packed international schedule leaves little scope for that but the itinerary of this tour was just what the Indians would have ordered. Not only has limited over series preceded the longer format but BCCI has ensured that other test experts like Pujara, Rahane and Vijay get a decent exposure even before their first warm-up game through lots of county matches and A tours. India has always had more success when the tests have been played after the ODIs and T20s.

Struggling England

England had their worst winter season, having won no matches and a worst start to their summer losing to an inexperienced Pakistan side. Over reliance on ageing Broad & Anderson, unreliable opening pair of Cook & Jeanings, Joe Root struggling to stitch big knocks in the longer format and out of form Ben Stokes has plagued England for a considerable amount of time and Indians would look to take full advantage of the same.