England vs India - A preview

The English side has been performing exceptionally in the longer version of the game recently. England’s innings have been lasting longer; bowlers have been probing longer and with more consistency and fielders are not being caught sleeping. Although Monty still has some work to do, he’s not asleep as much as he is sloppy.

As for India, their situation is a bit uncertain. India has only one frontline spinner – Kumble – travelling. Although Powar is travelling, he still has a lot to prove. Although India has a lot of pacers in its ranks, these pacers also still have a lot to prove. Zaheer is doing really well. As has been pointed out by many, Zaheer is the only one who has any kind of experience in English conditions. Ranadeb Bose is on his first expedition with India.

Sreesanth has been with the Indian team for some time now but still has to curb that extra aggression in him which is misinterpreted by many as good spirit. He has no experience in England. But, the way he bowled in South Africa last year in those conditions says a lot about him. He has shown that he can read the conditions well and that he can bowl as the conditions demand. It is reassuring for the team management to know that they have someone who can do that.

The Indian batsmen are pretty solid. Although Jaffer has to be a little careful, Karthick has seen the importance of staying on for a bit early in the innings and reading and understanding the conditions clearly before trying anything. Sachin is pretty confident and that 171, I suspect has got him into the test match mood once again after those 90s.

The question that arises is who will go behind the stumps. A point to be noted at this stage is that after the Dravid experiment, initially the selectors chose to keep Karthick ‘keeping in tests and Dhoni in one dayers. The decision by the selectors to bring Dhoni into the test side after his ODI fireworks was a decision in haste. This is because prior to this change, Karthick had some pretty useful knocks; one against Pakistan in Chennai (if my memory supports my) was a gem and one to remember.

The English have no problems with players not performing with the exception of Andrew Strauss. But he certainly deserves a place in the side. Furthermore, his presence in the side will balance the batting. He also scored a fifty recently. If Strauss and Cook open, that will give Vaughan a good opportunity to go in at number three or number four – where I believe he will do his best.

England has a really solid batting set up. Cook, Strauss, Bell, Vaughan, Collingwood, Pietersen, Prior. What’s more, the last of them - arranged as per probable batting order – scored a fifty in his last test played and also a hundred recently.

As for bowling, Sidebottom is keeping the areas consistent and Hoggard is so reliable. I won’t discuss Monty at all. We know that England are a good fielding set up (they’ve got Collingwood!) Prior is pretty reliable behind the stumps as well.

As a conclusion, the English have a 51% percent chance of winning – but its going to be interesting.-BS