Can India win 'sweeping' stakes?

Visakhapatnam: A major attribute that has made this Indian Test team one of the most successful ones across eras is the character they display when they are pushed to a corner. Like champions generally do, they dig into their reserves and find a way to eventually triumph in the end.

Be it the last home series against England when they were outplayed by the brilliance of Joe Root in Chennai in 2021 or the series against Australia in 2020-21 when they were shot out for 36 in Adelaide or the 2016-17 series against Australia when they were bamboozled by Steeve O’Keefe in Pune or the 2015 series against Sri Lanka when Dinesh Chandimal smashed 162 in Galle, India found themselves humbled in the opener. But, on all those occasions, the Indians were the ones posing with the trophy at the end.

India, missing several players who were part of such phenomenal comebacks owing to transition, injuries and unavailability, will be looking to tap into that famed fighting mentality as they seek a turnaround against a confident England in the second Test starting Friday at the Dr YSR ACA-VDCA Stadium here.

India, probably overconfident, were caught unawares by an England side who had done an exceptional homework and executed those plans to perfection in Hyderabad. For around a fortnight in Abu Dhabi ahead of the India series they practiced hard on the sweeps and reverse-sweeps and literally every batter daringly dished it out to leave the famed spin duo of R Ashwin and R Jadeja as well as Axar Patel totally bemused. They promised to floor India with Bazball and did just that.

Worse, debutant spinner Tom Hartley, part-timer Joe Root and Rehan Ahmed, another rookie, ran rings around India’s batters and the hosts, despite taking a massive 190-run first-innings lead, ended up losing by 28 runs. Amongst defeats, that would probably sting them the most. Despite the shellacking however, the management has maintained that the mood is upbeat and they can’t wait to hit back.

Two batters who really need to step up are Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer. The duo are in the middle of a rut and their extended poor form, coinciding with Virat Kohli’s absence due to personal reasons and KL Rahul out injured, is really not helping the team’s cause. Gill was ironing out his flaws over the last two days at the ‘nets’ and the talented youngster will be hoping for a big knock this game.

It remains to be seen between Rajat Patidar and Sarfaraz Khan whom the skipper Rohit Sharma or coach Rahul Dravid pick as Rahul’s replacement. Patidar is a polished and technically sound batter, almost a like-for-like Rahul replacement but Sarfaraz, a naturally attacking batter, is in the form of his life and an ideal fit to take on England’s inexperienced spinners, especially with his sweeps and reverse-sweeps. 

Talking about those two shots, the Indian batters practiced it a fair amount on Wednesday but barring Rohit and KS Bharat, it didn’t look organic in most others' cases. England played it following immense practice and replicating it just to show your opponents you too can play it could be counter-productive.

It’s also likely that Kuldeep Yadav, whom Rohit felt was a hard decision to leave out ahead of Axar in the opening game, could start but with off-spinner Washington Sundar being a much better batter, there’s a possibility the Uttar Pradesh left-arm wrist-spinner may yet again miss the bus.

England will continue with their three-spinner one-pacer strategy with veteran James Anderson replacing Mark Wood and Shoaib Bashir set for Test debut after Jack Leach failed to recover from his knee injury.  Bashir, Rehan and Hartley have a combined tally of three Tests and India will be hoping to cash-in on that inexperience.

The pitch is expected to be another slow-burner with runs on it for the first two days before the natural wear and tear brings spinners into play on the last two days.

Teams: INDIA (from): Rohit Sharma (capt), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (wk), Dhruv Jurel (wk), R Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah (vice-capt), Avesh Khan, Rajat Patidar, Sarfaraz Khan, Washington Sundar, Saurabh Kumar.

ENGLAND (playing XI): Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes (capt), Ben Foakes (wk), Rehan Ahmed, Tom Hartley, Shoaib Bashir, James Anderson.