CHENNAI: Within a few hours on Monday afternoon, the two contrasting management styles of India and England were laid bare. The hosts, up 1-0 in the five-match series, named their XI for the second Test, beginning at Edgbaston from Wednesday. As expected, they will play an unchanged side. Jofra Archer was included in the long list, but they were never going to risk him with less than 20 red-ball overs in his legs over the last few seasons.
In sharp contrast, the Indian think-tank stuck to their template of not giving a lot away two days out from the Test. Will Jasprit Bumrah play? "He's available but...," was the gist of Ryan ten Doeschate's summary. The smart money is on the Indian pacer missing the Test.
That, however, leaves Gautam Gambhir, Shubman Gill & Co. to mull over other decisions. Do they stick with three pacers or try to diversify the bowling attack? With the square at Edgbaston dry and Bazball pitches tending to be on the flatter side, there could be a temptation to bring in Washington Sundar or Kuldeep Yadav.
Yadav would be the bolder choice as he's an outright wicket-taker and wrist spinners can take surfaces out of play. Yadav also has recent knowledge of bowling to a lot of the Bazball batters, some of whom can be compulsive sweepers, orthodox or otherwise. The one advantage Yadav has over Sundar, from the bowling standpoint, is this — it's harder to hit a wrist-spinner than a finger-spinner on an unresponsive surface. Sundar, though, is the safer choice and it's a choice this regime has had previous with. The management's response for the hosts' Bengaluru shocker against New Zealand last October was to drop Yadav for Sundar.
While Gill has come on record to say his preferred mode of attack is picking up 20 wickets, the Gambhir regime has generally veered towards packing their lower order with batters who can bowl a bit or bowlers who consider themselves very good with the bat.
Run your hands through the list of names to have played under Gambhir in red-ball cricket and it becomes fairly obvious. Five of Sundar's nine Tests have come under Gambhir. Nitish Kumar Reddy may yet play a big part in this series. Shardul Thakur played his first Test in 18 months. Ravindra Jadeja, even if his returns with both bat (26.42, down from his career average of 34.75) and ball (average of 29.13, down from his career average of 24.59) have dwindled under Gambhir, remains the first all-rounder on the team sheet. One only has to cast the mind back to Sydney in the fifth Test in Australia. On a green seamer with the series on the line, India played as many as three-allrounders.
It kind of says that even if they decide to leave out Thakur, they may decide to play Reddy over a frontline wicket-taker. If not, they may consider Sundar for some of the above-mentioned reasons; this is based on the assumption that they stick to the current combination of three outright seamers.
The Dutch support staff indicated that they are planning towards naming two spinners in the XI. "There is a very strong chance of playing two spinners," the County veteran, thanks to his time at Essex, said. "It's just which two we play. All three spinners are bowling very nicely.
"Washi's batting very nicely. So it's just which combination do we go with? All-rounder spinner or the out-and-out spinner? And you have to play the bowling all-rounder again. So there's so many different variables. The wicket's got 11 mm grass on at the moment. 11 or 12 mm. But it's quite grassy and patchy. It's quite dry underneath. But there's also rain forecast for Wednesday. So again, trying to weigh up the two options of how we want to go attacking-wise. But I'm pretty sure two spinners will play in this Test."
The added threat of some overhead conditions on three of the five days gives the team more pause for thought with respect to Bumrah. If there's going to be some rain on three days out of five, the result is out of the question. So why even play him here?
Their answers to these questions will inform the side they name at the toss.
