India wouldn't have expected that they would find themselves in such a situation - trailing after the first Test - despite being in a position to win the series opener against England in Hyderabad. It wasn't to be as England proved to be too good with the bat and the ball in the second innings and took a 1-0 lead in the five-match assignment. If it wasn't a blow earlier, the injuries to Ravindra Jadeja and KL Rahul have further mounted India's problems, coupled with a few batters being out of form and with all this, the hosts have to aim for a series-levelling win in Vizag.
India are likely to field a debutant, if not two, and the challenge for the batting unit will be to stake a claim in the absence of the first-choice stars with the team set to have hit the transition button. The batting coach urged for a little patience since all of them are still very new in their respective Test careers but with WTC points on the line, the likes of Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer in particular will have to pull their weight in the side.
Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam Pitch Report
Vizag is generally a slow wicket even in the white-ball games as the spinners get a lot of assistance. However, in the two Test matches that have been played at the venue, they both have been high-scoring with India winning by 246 runs and 203 run-margin respectively. India achieved massive team totals of 455 and 502 in those two games and were able to bowl out the opposition twice to win both games. This proves that the wicket is not as flat as say Ahmedabad, which saw a dull draw last year against Australia where bowlers didn't have much say and may not be a rank turner too, which is basically a batters' graveyard.
Hyderabad provided one of the best Test surfaces in India in recent times with both batters and bowlers getting value from the wicket, which has put pressure on the Vizag curator. The Vizag pitch too might be very close to the one in Hyderabad as the hosts know that if they lay out a rank turner, their batters will also struggle against the spinners, a glimpse of which everyone saw in the second innings in Hyderabad.
