English team in action
ENG vs IND, 5th Test: The alarm clocks of England Test cricket have gone off as they have entirely altered their ways of playing red ball cricket. Before the start of the New Zealand series, Stuard Broad laid huge emphasis on the brand of cricket that the English Test team was looking to play, but little did anybody know what they had at the back of their minds.
When Brendon McCullum was appointed as the head coach of the English Test team, everybody had sensed that England's dismal run in the red ball format was about to end. But executing the expectations on the field and outplaying a quality Kiwi side was something that no one saw coming.
At Lord's New Zealand had 4 English wickets at a meager 69, in Nottingham they amassed a total of 533 runs when invited to bat first, and in Leeds, the Kiwis had England 55 for 6.
Every time England was caught off-guard, they kept on finding new heroes who bailed them out of troubled seas. As England clean-sweep New Zealand 3-0, they will like to replicate their performances and win the final test match against India.
Team India leads the series 2-1 and they will look to win the contest and get their hands on the trophy, but looking at how aggressively England is playing right now, it certainly looks like they will make India toil hard for victory.
As of now, things do not look that great for the visitors as skipper Rohit Sharma is down with COVID-19 and his chances of playing look pretty bleak. Mayank Agarwal has been asked to join the squad as Rohit Sharma's cover but even he hasn't been amongst the runs.
With KL Rahul already ruled out of the series, Shubhman Gill is all set to open the innings for India, but his inexperience in these conditions is a matter of worry.
India will place heavy bets on former skipper Virat Kohli and will want him to fire if they are to stamp their authority on the match. Head coach Rahul Dravid also has a good headache of choosing one between Ashwin and Jadeja and only time will tell about India's mindset and preparations for this particular match.
Indian Squad:
Rohit Sharma (C), KL Rahul (VC), Mayank Agarwal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rishabh Pant (wk), KS Bharat (wk), R Jadeja, R Ashwin, Shardul Thakur, Mohd Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Prasidh Krishna
