~snip~
In recent press conference Kohli gave a thumbs up to Pant and hinted that he's going to play 1st match instead of Saha. He also going with Rohit-Gill, as expected. So looks like Batting line up is set with 6 specialists batsmen. Fight is for bowling slot, Ashwin, Ishant and Bumrah are fixed.
Sunder/Axar Patel (new name) Kuldeep are fighting for 2 slots if India going with 3 spinners.
I think Kuldeep or Sunder are much ahead in the race than Axar Patel. This is a turning track Axar Patel isn't the best turner. His strength is the variety that he has along with the pace. But yes putting Ashwin-sundar-Axar would give immense depth in batting to the team. It would be like playing with 9 batsmen or 10 batsmen considering even Bumrah can hit a 50 anytime
. But yes top 6 are almost certain and I knew this right after the Aussie Tour. But I expect Rohit to hit some runs now. Considering the competition in the team he is no more a default choice in the playing XI for test matches. He was pretty ineffective in Australia too.
Lol Shahbaz Nadeem came out of nowhere and
debuting (
Edit Correction : Not his first game) , he was not even in the squad. Thanks to injury of Axar, he got the chance. Don't know what's going to happen with Kuldeep if Nadeem performs.
Not Rohit but every player need to prove his worth in the team, competition become very tough in the Indian team due to last series win. No one can take their place for granted.
Anyone watching the 1st match between India vs England?
England won the toss and elected to bat first and the pitch looks flat so going to be high scoring test?
Ofc
Its good that England won the toss, match becomes good when host team lose the toss.