England win toss at Oval, elect to bowl on a green pitch as India make two changes

England won the toss and elected to bowl first

England captain Alastair Cook won the toss at the Oval and elected to bowl first on a track which looked helpful for bowlers with a lot of live grass on it, along with favourable conditions overhead at the time of the toss. This was the first time that a captain chose to bowl first in an England vs India Test at the Oval, with captains choosing to bat first on all previous occasions.

“Quite a lot of live grass and a lot of rain over the 24 hours, think it might do a bit,” Cook said after Indian skipper MS Dhoni called incorrectly at the flip of the coin. Cook also confirmed that Stuart Broad, who had a broken nose after being hit by a Varun Aaron bouncer at Manchester, will be playing the match.

“Stuart Broad is absolutely fine. Same team. All the guys have done well. The series is still alive and want to put them under pressure again.”

This was the 3rd time Dhoni lost the toss in the series, having called correctly at Southampton and Manchester earlier. He conceded that India too were looking to bowl at a pitch which looked to be offering most help on Day 1.

“We wanted to bowl as well, tinge of green and would have liked the fast bowlers to have a go here when it did something," Dhoni said.

India made two changes in the side from Manchester, bringing in Ishant Sharma, who had recovered from his injury after Lord’s Test, for Pankaj Singh, and replacing all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja with Stuart Binny.

“We have two changes: Stuart Binny is in for Ravindra Jadeja and Ishant Sharma is also back, in place of Pankaj Singh. Ishant’s experience is important, only fast bowler in the side with 50 Tests, the others are barely 10 Tests old. Putting runs on the board is important here. The whole batting unit will not perform every day but we need good starts. Once they have got going, we have lost wickets. But I'm confident they will do better here,” said the Indian skipper.

It’s important to note that India were put in to bat at Lord’s by Cook where they won the Test.

England (XI): Alastair Cook (c), Sam Robson, Gary Ballance, Ian Bell, Joe Root, Moeen Ali, Jos Buttler (wk), Chris Woakes, Stuart Broad, Chris Jordan, James Anderson

India (XI): Murali Vijay, Gautam Gambhir, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, MS Dhoni (c/wk), Stuart Binny, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Varun Aaron, Ishant Sharma