England v India, 2018: Top 5 things to look ahead of the Test Series

It’s coming home!

No, It’s not some frantic statement by a hungover football fan but rather, one that is filled with expectations as test cricket, a purist’s carnival returns to its homeland.

After a roller-coaster of T20I and ODI games, where blows were traded, exposing each other of their weak spots, England edged past India in the latter format and India in the former.

The two teams face off in a long 5-match tug-of-war with India looking to prove their prowess as the top-ranked test team and England hoping to script the history books with their continued dominance over India at home.

Let’s take a look at what the series has to offer:

---

#1 England faces a herculean task

England’s domination of the shorter format seems to be balanced by their struggles in the longer formats. Their last three series with the red ball have seen them losing the urn in the Ashes 4–0 (5), surrendering to the Kiwis 1–0 (2) and drawing up with Pakistan 1–1 (2) which obviously suggests that they’ve had some key issues to address.

Among James Vince, Mark Stoneman and David Malan, only Malan has been able to hold onto his place with some consistent scoring, while Stoneman’s lack of success has reopened the door for Keaton Jennings.

England’s inability to pick 20-wickets

Moeen Ali’s repeated failure to either pick wickets at crucial junctures of the game or contribute with the bat has culminated in selectors replacing him with Dominic Bess. With the heatwave in England supposed to last long, coach Trevor Bayliss has added weight to the possibility of Adil Rashid returning to red-ball cricket.

While the re-inclusion of Jos Buttler to strengthen the tail and availability of Ben Stokes is welcome, the England team trying to plug its holes will look up to its senior players like Cook, Anderson and Broad for inspiration.

#2 India’s problem of plenty

Although injury to pace spearheads Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah automatically selects pace trio of Ishant, Umesh and Shami, India definitely has to deal with the plethora of options available.

Pujara’s odd form, amassing 411 runs in 8 games of the Royal London One-Day Cup with a healthy strike-rate of 90 but an abysmal performance in the longer format, his prime area of expertise, scoring a meager 172 in 12 innings in comparison with K L Rahul who had a prolific Indian Premier League, backing it up with a 54 in the solitary test against Afghanistan, 70 against Ireland and 100 against England leaves the number 3-spot up for debate.

A combination of hot weather, dry pitches and consistent match-winning performances by Kuldeep Yadav with the white-ball puts Jadeja’s place in a spot of bother.

Amidst all this, team India needs to strike a balance in its combination, whether to go with 4-bowlers, Hardik Pandya and 6-batsmen or 5-bowlers, Pandya and 5-batsmen or even explore the bold option of going in with specialists in each field, though most of which will depend on the playing surface.

#3 The daunting journey from 50 to 100s

In his last 16 test innings, Joe Root has compiled 637 runs comprising of 8 half-centuries and a high score of 83. The concerning factor is that none of these eight 50s has been converted into a century. The last century to flow out of Joe Root’s bat was when he scored 136 in the first innings of the first match against West Indies at Edgbaston and has failed to reach the 3-digit score in subsequent 19 opportunities. What’s more impeccable is that England has never lost a test whenever Root has managed to score a century.

Joe Root’s poor conversion rate

Apart from sharing elegance and class in their strokes, K L Rahul has trodden a similar path to Joe Root in consistently falling short to convert his fifties into hundreds. Rahul even joined an elite club of cricketers after scoring seven fifties consecutively.

However, both the batsmen will be high on confidence having scored centuries in the shorter formats and on the lookout for that elusive three-mark figure.

#4 The ‘Slip’ Cordon

Gone are those days when fitness along with finesse was just appreciated. The importance of fitness has elevated to levels where it has become a criterion for selection and indeed it has produced some brilliant athleticism in the field.

Slip fielding being one such area which can win you matches or let the match slip right through your hands, and with the ball moving around quite a bit, it becomes imperative that the slip fielders grab their opportunities.

Both the teams, India who have constantly rotated their slip fielders and England who were under fire for dropping quite a few catches in the first test match against Pakistan will be hoping to get their act right.

#5 Virat Kohli, The batsman

If there’s one question that the Indian Skipper has faced the most by paparazzi leading up to the tour of England, it would be on his disastrous tour of 2014 averaging just 13.4 from 10 innings.

Kohli has time and again reiterated that critics have held on to this for far too long and his knocks in the Champions Trophy, 2017 have been overlooked. Indeed, Kohli had a memorable Champions Trophy rounding up 258 runs in 5 matches with three 50s.

The whole cricketing fraternity though, except for the English, maybe, would love Kohli to tick this one checkbox, fine tune this one small blemish in otherwise what looks a perfect record. Whether or not Kohli will dwell on this, it surely will be a mouth-watering contest between bat and ball.