4 questions India need to address ahead of the Test series against England
The highly anticipated five-match Test series between England and India kicks off on 1st of August at Edgbaston in Birmingham. With India claiming the T20I series and England bossing the ODIs, the upcoming Test series, in a way, is a tie-breaker. The winner takes everything and the loser, pretty much like in life, looks for the positives.
While India currently top the ICC Test ranking, England sit in 5th position, but these rankings are of little significance as it’s what you do on the field that matters. That said, England will have a slight edge over India, given the home conditions. The visitors, though, will look to bury the ghosts of 2014 and prove why they are touted as the best side when it comes to the longer-form of the game.
However, there are certain questions that Virat Kohli and the Indian think-tank need to address ahead of the Test series. Let’s have a look what those are.
#1 Should Pujara play after a poor run of form in red-ball cricket?
Home or away, Cheteshwar Pujara has been India’s go to man at no. 3 in Test matches since Rahul Dravid’s retirement. But it doesn't look all honky-dory for the Saurashtra batsman going into this series. He had a forgettable tour of South Africa earlier this year and his recent county stint was, well, horrendous to say the least.
While Pujara could manage only 100 runs from six innings in the rainbow nation, his county tally read 172 runs in 12 innings with a highest score of 41. A paltry 24 runs from two innings in the recently concluded warm-up game against Essex didn’t help his cause either.
That said, all this could just be a bad-patch and he could well use this series as a springboard and come out with flying colours at the end of it, but tell that to the Indian captain Virat Kohli, who time and again, has insisted on current form being one of the key metrics for selection in the playing XI.
One factor which works in Pujara’s favour, though, is his experience of playing red-ball cricket in England, and given a chance, he could use that to good effect.
So, it will be interesting to see whether Kohli goes for experience over recent form or stick to his earlier idea that made him pick Rohit Sharma ahead of Ajinkya Rahane in South Africa.