Match Preview – India vs England, England tour of India 2024, 2nd Test

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It’s happened before, you know? It even happened against England; the last time they were here, in fact.

It's already arrived. India lost 1-0 at home and India bounced back. This is what India will say to itself: “We have been here before. We trust ourselves to find our way out of this. We trust our methods.

That's what they should tell themselves too. Change is a reality, a constant to which India is not blind – note its efforts to adopt sweep and all its variations in the run-up to Visakhapatnam – but there is a reason they were so successful in their own country. conditions for so long: their methods work, and work extremely well, most of the time.

Hyderabad was one of those rare and bizarre exceptions. India also had something very similar – Dinesh Chandimal, an almost shot-for-shot precursor to Ollie Pope – and they came back to win that series as well.

India has been there and done that. They will have confidence that they can do it again. And for all the shockwaves they set off in Hyderabad, England will know when they arrive in Visakhapatam that they will most likely have to continue doing bizarre things to repeat this result. Having won the first Test with a frontline attack with the collective experience of 36 Tests, they now enter the second with one who has played three Tests combined. Three. It is highly likely that Joe Root will once again bowl more overs than at least one of their theoretical main spinners.

However, have England had better chances in India than this one since their triumphant tour of 2012-13? India were a team in transition at the end of Tendulkar, and if they're not already in another full-fledged transition now, the number of absences they're facing have left them in a not-too-different situation .

They have already felt the effects of losing experienced hitters. Bowlers win Test matches, it's true, but batters can lose them, in ways that aren't immediately apparent. India left Hyderabad feeling like they had lost that Test match on the second day, when their batters, one after the other, fell while trying to hit the boundaries. Eight of their first nine topped 20, and three of them reached the 80s, but none of them reached triple digits. The aggression that cost them their wickets also cost them their runs, yes, but one could easily imagine Virat Kohli, in the same conditions and against the same attack, going at a not so different pace without hitting anything in the air , and accumulate what seemed to him perhaps a double-cent to take.

In Visakhapatnam, India will miss not only Kohli but also KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja, two of their three most experienced batters from the first Test.

And the loss of Jadeja, needless to say, will leave them without one half of one of the greatest spin-bowling duos in history. It's a big blow, especially since India are already without Mohammed Shami, whose absence in Hyderabad has left them without a supreme wicket-taker in Indian conditions while – given their apparent lack of confidence in Mohammed Siraj – piling extra overs on the shoulders of their spinners. .

It is a reflection of India's quality that Jadeja's likely replacement is Kuldeep Yadav, a bowler who would likely be part of England's first-choice attack in every Test match, both home and away. outside, if they could magically change his nationality. Even so, as good as they are, India are not as good as they could be, and therein lies England's greatest chance.

Form Guide

India LWLDW (last five tests, most recent first)

England WWDWL

In the spotlight

He averages 21.55, hit three fives for in just 14 innings and was the player of the match in his last Test match, but he is an Indian spinner in the era of R Ashwin and Jadeja. Kuldeep Yadav has missed 56 of India's 64 Tests since his debut in 2017, and he has waited patiently for opportunities like this. Along the way, he has become a more resilient bowler, quicker and harder to bowl against on the back foot, while remaining equally deceptive in the air and off the field. In some ways, he could be exactly the bowler India needs against an England side ready to sweep and overthrow everything in their path: a little more dip, a little more bounce and the threat of the ball going into unexpected directions.

He bowled 48 overs to Hyderabad, the most he has ever bowled in a Test match, and there is every chance he will have to endure a similar workload again. Can Joe Racine deal ? And what effect will that have on his hitter?

Team News

India have decisions to make with the absence of Rahul and Jadeja. Kuldeep's wicket-taking ability or Washington Sundar's all-round utility? Rajat Patidar's position in the hierarchy or Sarfaraz Khan's unorthodox methods? Is there, perhaps, even an argument in favor of Sundar And Kuldeep, with a batter or fast bowler – Siraj – missing?

India (possible): 1 Rohit Sharma (captain), 2 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 3 Shubman Gill, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 Rajat Patidar, 6 Axar Patel, 7 KS Bharat (week), 8 R Ashwin, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Mohammed Siraj.

play1:32

England are 3-1 again, with James Anderson and Shoaib Bashir replacing Mark Wood and the injured Jack Leach.

England: 1 Zak Crawley, 2 Ben Duckett, 3 Ollie Pope, 4 Joe Root, 5 Jonny Bairstow, 6 Ben Stokes (captain), 7 Ben Foakes (wk), 8 Rehan Ahmed, 9 Tom Hartley, 10 Shoaib Bashir, 11 James Anderson .

Location and conditions

On the eve of the match, Ben Stokes suggested that the Visakhapatnam pitch might offer slightly fewer turns at the start than the one in Hyderabad, before “toe holes and stuff like that. […] comes into play as the test progresses.” The sun will set though, so it may not take too long for the pitch to start showing wear.

The spinners will bowl the bulk of the overs, but don't be surprised if the quicks make an impact. Reverse swing came into the picture the last time England played here – Anderson, Stuart Broad and Stokes took 10 of the 20 Indian wickets that fell – and three years later Shami was India's fourth-innings destroyer against South Africa, taking 5 for 35 from a carry on a pitch where the ball frequently remained low.

Statistics and anecdotes

• Ashwin is four wickets away from becoming the second Indian bowler to reach the 500-mark in Test cricket.

• Ashwin (95) is just one wicket behind Bhagwath Chandrasekhar, India's leading Test wicket-taker against England. Anderson (139) is far first on the list of wicket-takers in the England-India Test.

• Jasprit Bumrah, on the other hand, needs four wickets to reach 150 in Tests.

• Rohit Sharma made centuries in both innings the last time India played a Test in Visakhapatnam. A similar test this time will help it surpass 4,000 tests. He currently has 3,800.

• Root (11,477) has more Test runs than the entire Indian team in Visakhapatnam (10,702).

• Anderson is set to play his 14th Test match in India, joining Keith Fletcher, Gordon Greenidge, Clive Lloyd and Ricky Ponting in third place on the list of overseas players, with only Viv Richards (15) and Derek Underwood (16) ahead. them.

• Anderson is also 10 wickets away from joining Muthiah Muralidaran and Shane Warne in the 700 club.

• Stokes is unlikely to bowl, but if he does, he will know he is three wickets away from the 200 mark in Tests.

Quotes

“Playing in India, we play a lot of cricket on these tracks. It's not that we don't know how to reverse sweep, sweep or paddle. On that day, depending on the team situation, we, as hitters, take our “. And it is very clear for us to strike with freedom. We also practiced the backhand in the first game, but then, yes, playing center is a hitter's individual plan, and if the team asks us to do it. play a certain way, we’re definitely up for it.”
Goalkeeper of India KS Bharat on whether hitters plan to use the sweep and reverse sweep more frequently in Visakhapatnam

“The way they set the tone for everyone, but also the way they put the bowlers under serious pressure with a new ball. A new ball is always the hardest time, but you know, not only are they They're constantly able to negate that, but they're also able to keep the scoreboard rolling at a really, really good pace, which is a huge thing for our locker room and our batting lineup as well. And I think that it's pretty obvious. [there’s] a height difference between the two of them and I think they complement each other very, very well. Balls Zak plays on the front foot, Ducky plays on the back foot. So it's very difficult, I think, for the bowlers to settle into a rhythm and a line and a length against those two. One is left-handed, the other is right-handed. So the way they complement each other is great. And yes, they get us off to a good start and kind of set the tone for us during a test. “
Captain of England Ben Stokes on the role Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett play at the top of the list