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James Anderson is a remarkable athlete. A remarkable fast bowler. A remarkable champion. Anderson, 41, made his Test debut in May 2003 and has played 183 matches in nearly 21 years. He has 690 Test wickets, only behind the legendary spin duo of Muttiah Muralitharan (800) and Shane Warne (708) in the all-time stakes. And even though he only took five wickets in his last four Tests, he looms as a central figure in England’s bid to reprise their heroics of 2012-13 and become the first side in more than a decade to conquer India in India.
In the current England squad, Anderson is one of only two bowlers – the other being left-arm spinner Jack Leach – to have played Test cricket in India. And yet, the swing exponent extraordinaire finds himself on the bench for the first of five Tests, starting in Hyderabad on Thursday.
In deference to their assessment of the surface at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium and in a spectacular break from their approach, England have named three specialist spinners and just one quick – the superfast Mark Wood – in their 11 for the opening Test. Leach will be joined by leggie Rehan Ahmed and the uncapped left-arm spinner Tom Hartley as England place all their eggs in the spin basket, with former skipper Joe Root’s handy off-spin a fourth cog on which Ben Stokes, playing as a specialist batter, will heavily rely.
Skipper Stokes refuted suggestions that the ageing (aged?) Anderson needed his workload to be managed, insisting that the nod went to Wood because of what he brought to the table. “When you go with one seamer, you look at the impact you want out of him. With his high pace, he (Wood) is a real impact bowler; bowling at 90 mph with a reversing ball is obviously going to be very difficult to play against,” he explained. “We have told him we want him to be bowling as fast as he can for short periods, because that’s how we’re going to use him this week.”
Harry Brook’s pre-series pullout has gifted Jonny Bairstow with another opportunity to overcome his travails against spin, though if R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja have anything to do with it, the Yorkshireman might well leave these shores having added to the three ducks he endured in four innings on England’s last tour here, in 2021. The Ashwin-Jadeja pairing is every captain’s dream and every opposition’s nightmare. To think that they will have one of Axar Patel – who accounted for 27 scalps in three home Tests against the same opponents three years back – or Kuldeep Yadav for company is a mouthwatering prospect for Rohit Sharma.
Kuldeep, the left-arm wrist-spinner, is a vastly improved and more mature bowler from a couple of years back while Axar is a master at exploiting a wearing track and can weigh in with healthy lower-order runs. Rohit conceded on Wednesday that Kuldeep presented a ‘tempting option’, perhaps subtly indicating that Axar would be the chosen one, especially with Virat Kohli sitting out the first two Tests for personal reasons.
India’s two selection debates will have revolved around Axar vs Kuldeep and KS Bharat vs Dhruv Jurel for the wicketkeeper’s slot. Jurel is uncapped while Bharat played the last of his five Tests last summer; what might have tilted the scales in the latter’s favour is an unbeaten century against the England Lions for India ‘A’ in the first unofficial Test in Ahmedabad last week. Kohli’s unavailability means the think-tank has been spared the unpleasant task of choosing between Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer – KL Rahul’s return as specialist batter was confirmed once he made a century against South Africa in Centurion last month. Neither right-hander has been in scintillating Test form in the last six months, this is as good a time as any to justify the faith in them.
Are England being bold and brave by banking on spin, or are they playing the conditions as they see it? Are India more balanced because apart from their three excellent spinners, they also have two sensational quicks in Jasprit Bumrah and local lad Mohammed Siraj? Definitely so, the experts aver, but mere balance doesn’t win games of cricket. It’s about eking out the runs on bare, brown strips where the ball will start to spin like a top at some stage. Do India’s batters have those runs in them? Watch this space.
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