Skipper Virat Kohli might have to thoughtfully analyse playing his best spinner Ravichandran Ashwin while expecting a far better show from the experienced batting line-up when India meet England in the second Test at the Lord's starting Thursday. While India was in a more favourable position to win the first Test before skies opened up on the final day, the first innings score of 278 was still below par as none among Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane scored runs. Not to forget that all three haven't scored heavily in the past two years and save Rahane, who got a hundred in Melbourne, the other two batting mainstays haven't been able to convert a lot of their half-centuries into three-figures.
As far as team combination is disturbed, Shardul Thakur's hamstring injury does again tilt the lower-order batting balance although the Mumbai seamer didn't trouble the scorers in the only innings that he played. Ashwin, who was dropped from the playing XI in the drawn opening game in Nottingham because of Ravindra Jadeja's superior skills with the willow, is back in the mix as Thakur seems to have done his hamstring some injury during the training session at the Lord's on Monday.
It's still not obvious whether he picked up the injury during the first Test or not. With Thakur being all but ruled out of the upcoming match, Kohli might have to revisit his 4-1 bowling combination which can't be cast in stone considering the lean nature of his team's lower-order batting. London has been recording a maximum temperature of 24 degrees with an average temperature around 14 degrees. In case the pitch is on the drier side, there could possibly be no harm in playing both Ashwin and Jadeja, who can trouble this brittle England batting line-up with their different variations. England's batting line-up was exposed again as skipper Joe Root had to come to his team's rescue for the umpteenth time with a fifty in the first innings and possibly a match-saving 21st Test hundred in the second essay.
India: Virat Kohli (captain), Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Mayank Agarwal, Ajinkya Rahane (vice-captain), Hanuma Vihari, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), R. Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma, Mohd. Shami, Md. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, KL Rahul, Wriddhiman Saha (wicket-keeper), Abhimanyu Easwaran, Prithvi Shaw, Suryakumar Yadav.
England: Joe Root (captain), James Anderson, Jonny Bairstow, Moeen Ali, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Sam Curran, Haseeb Hameed, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Dom Sibley, Mark Wood, Saqib Mahmood.
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