This series offers very little rest bite for players, fans and bloggers alike. Finishing the first test early has at least afforded everyone concerned with an extra days rest. Even at this early stage you would imagine that it is the level of emotional investment made by players on both teams as much as the physical side that needs to be overcome after such a close finish.
England are a team that has recently received criticism of a perceived drinking culture within the group. I hope that they did enjoy a couple of beers in the changing room on Saturday and had a good rest on Sunday and are now ready to refocus and prepare for the 2nd Test. Consistency has been a real problem for the Test team for some time now and putting together a 2nd consecutive winning performance would put England in a very strong position to run away with this series.
For India, 5-6 of the players need to have a serious rethink about how they are going to be effective in these conditions. India’s performance was very lopsided with a few players having a major impact on the game while the majority had little to none. I still feel that with India, their lack of preparation for the Test series as well as the casual way they approached the final 2 ODIs has cost them in the 1st Test. Will Shastri and Kohli be able to turn around the performances of the top order batsmen in the space of just 4 days?
Let's consider the venue and how both teams may choose to line up...........
Lord's - The Home of Cricket
Lord's has not always been a happy hunting ground for England. There is a theory that opposition teams raise their game when visiting the so called Home of Cricket, so keen is the team to get a win there and so priceless a players name appearing on the fabled honours board. Indeed of the last 10 matches England have played at Lord's they have won just 4 times and lost another 4 matches including the game played against Pakistan earlier in the year and the 2014 Test against India.
Certainly the whole theory of sides raising their game may explain a relatively poor recent record but I think it can equally be said that part of England's troubles have come about as a result of a change in the Lord's pitch. Over the last decade, Lord's has become significantly slower and flatter, conditions that haven't suited an England team whose bowlers generally rely on lateral movement from the pitch to take 20 wickets. The 2015 Ashes game would be a classic example of a pitch which suited the Australian batsmen who went about filling their boots, scoring over 800 runs in the match for the loss of just 10 wickets. Bear in the mind this is the same Australian batting line-up that a couple of weeks later were bowled out for just 60 on a seaming Trent Bridge wicket against an England side without James Anderson. On a ground where at the turn of the century, England often played without a genuine slow bowler we are now seeing spinners dominate games. Both Yasir Shah of Pakistan and England's Moeen Ali have taken 10 wicket hauls at Lords since 2016. Even the recent ODI match between England and India demonstrated how slow and low Lord's has become as England captain Eoin Morgan opted to bat first and then successfully stifled the Indian run chase on a wicket where timing the ball proved difficult. All of the above point to the fact that India both from a batting and bowling perspective may enjoy this pitch more than they did Edgbaston.
Of course both sets of players - batsmen, bowlers and fielders alike, will need to come to terms with the famous Lord's slope.
Some bowlers, perhaps most famously Glenn McGrath, have loved the slope and used it to their advantage while others including some English bowlers struggle to find their rhythm and length as a result of it. Ishant Sharma is one man that has very fond memories of Lord's after he recorded career best figures of 7-74 to win India the match in 2014. Sharma and Ashwin in particular may both be looking forward to using the slope to further trouble England's left-handers after their recent success against them in the first test.
Overhead conditions will always play a part in England with the forecast that the recent very hot and dry weather is likely to come to an end later in the week with the threat of rain or least very cloudy conditions moving in. This will be good news for England's seamers but it shouldn't be forgotten that India's bowlers too often found exaggerated swing during the 1st Test last week. If the 2 captains are presented with damp conditions on the first morning it will be interesting to see whether whoever wins the toss will be tempted to bowl. It would be a brave move and ultimately it may be one of those tosses that a captain would rather lose.
India - Team Selection
Do India stick or do they twist? This time last week they had named an 11 which presumably they thought would win them this series. After 1 Test match will Kohli and Shastri decide that some of the batsmen aren't up to the task or will they decide to give the team another go to justify their initial selection?
Pujara, left out of the the team for the 1st Test, must surely be under consideration to come back in for the game at Lord's after KL Rahul played a couple of rash shots at number 3. After their failures in the middle order Rahane and Karthik are also under pressure from Nair and Pant respectively. Rahane's recent Test form has been poor and it seems that there are growing calls from back home for him to be dropped in favour of young Nair who hit a tripple hundred against England on their last tour to India.
The inclusion of Pant may just help to give India the same sort of boost and youthful care free attitude that Sam Curran provided for England in the 1st Test on his way to man of the match. Certainly England's bowlers won't have seen that much of him and there is the added advantage that he is left-handed - the only leftie in the 11 for India during the 1st Test was Dhawan. The call made for Karthik to keep wicket over Pant would have been a close one and I believe that Pant has the talent and quality to succeed at this level.
Then there is Ravi Jadeja, a man with a good record against England and a reputation for being able to wind-up the opposition, something that James Anderson can attest to. Pandya did ok with the bat but hardly bowled in the game. Would the extra spin of Jadeja come in useful or would naming an extra batsmen in Nair be the way to go seeing as India had little trouble in taking 20 wickets with just 4 specialist bowlers? Of the bowlers, only Yadav failed to deliver and there is talk that Bumrah will return from injury to take his place. If that is the case then it represents something of a risk for India to include a player who has not bowled a ball in anger since he arrived in England.
Whatever the decisions may be this is a game that India cannot afford to lose and they will need their big guns and a few of the others to fire at Lord's in order to level the series.
England - Team Selection
We know for sure that England will be making 2 changes to their starting 11. Ben Stokes court case started this week and by Wednesday/Thursday he is likely to begin his defence on charges of affray. As shown by his bowling performance at Edgbaston, he is a special talent and a man who generally impacts on a game in some way for England. Chris Woakes has been added to the squad and England look likely to choose between him and Moeen Ali for the spot vacated by Stokes.
Logic says that England will want to keep the same balance of 4 seamers and 1 spinner to their bowling attack and as such Woakes seems likely to get the nod with his selection also keeping the batting line-up a little longer in comparison to how it would look if Porter were choosen. As discussed in my summary of the 1st Test, England's back-up bowlers did a fantastic job at Edgbaston and it will be up to Woakes to continue that theme and keep the pressure on the Indian batsmen after Anderson & Broad finish their spells.
One selection that looks to be pretty much nailed on is that of Ollie Pope who has replaced Dawid Malan in the squad and looks likely to bat at number 4 for England at Lord's. You would have got pretty long odds on that happening at the beginning of the season but Pope has justified his selection by the weight of runs that he has scored for Surrey in the county championship this season.
As someone who watches a fair bit of cricket at the Oval, I have seen a reasonable amount of Ollie Pope in the flesh these last 2 years and to be completely honest, I didn't think much of him when he first came into the team. His initial break through, as is often the case with modern cricketers was via the T20 and 50 over teams where he was a player who would try a lot of flicks, tricks, scoops and dabs often with little or no success. At the time you wondered whether he really had the core game to fall back on to make it as a professional cricketer. However, at the beginning of this season with the retirement of Kumar Sangakkara, Pope was afforded a starting spot in the 4 day team and from there he has never looked back. I was at the Oval earlier this season to see him compile an excellent hundred (his 1st this season) against a Hampshire attack that included players of Test pedigree such as Kyle Abbott, Fidel Edwards and Liam Dawson. From there he has not looked back and he certainly brings the kind of form to the squad which was lacking with Malan whom I have suggested should have been dropped for the 1st Test. Equally, Pope provides another right hand option in England's middle order which may help to combat the effectiveness of Ashwin in particular. Whether 20 year old Pope can adapt to the big time in quite the same way that his Surrey team mate Sam Curran has done remains to be seen and critics may also point to his selection being somewhat of a reaction in the wake of the recall of Adil Rashid. Whatever the reasons, it's always exciting to see a young batsmen get a chance and I wish him well.
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