Result Prediction: India vs England test series 2016

[Sooda]

I'm nervous about this, I feel England will have learnt from Bangladesh and up their game + we will take them too lightly 

 

I hope India annihilate England 

[Malcolm Merlyn]

Just now, Sooda said:

I'm nervous about this, I feel England will have learnt from Bangladesh and up their game + we will take them too lightly 

 

I hope India annihilate England 

 

5-0 to us soods.

[Sooda]

8 minutes ago, Malcolm Merlyn said:

 

5-0 to us soods.

InshaAllah bro :)

 

I was daydreaming about this the other day... want all 20 England wickets to falling each match.. split between Ashwin with 32 for series , Mishra with 26, Jadeja with 20, Shami with 15 and Pandya with 7

 

England to win all the tosses but only cross 200 in an innings once... Pujara to be top run getter ,  Root to average 10 in 5 tests 

 

And yeah 5-0

 

 

 

[Malcolm Merlyn]

7 minutes ago, Sooda said:

InshaAllah bro :)

 

I was daydreaming about this the other day... want all 20 England wickets to falling each match.. split between Ashwin with 32 for series , Mishra with 26, Jadeja with 20, Shami with 15 and Pandya with 7

 

England to win all the tosses but only cross 200 in an innings once... Pujara to be top run getter ,  Root to average 10 in 5 tests 

 

And yeah 5-0

 

 

 

Except that i want 50 wickets for Ashwin.

[sandeep]

50?  Geez.  40 would be amazing if he plays 5.  He can't bowl from both ends you know.  

 

 

[tweaker]

With India and England set to square off at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Ground in Rajkot later this year, it seems quite clear that this is going to become the 120th international Test arena in the world. Moreover, this is also set to become India’s 23rd Test match venue with Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi expected to be in attendance.

Niranjan Shah, the former supremo of the Board of Control for Cricket in India also went on to reveal that the Indian Prime Minister had been invited to the event. The stadium in Rajkot boasts of world class facilities including a few architectural structures from the Lord’s cricket ground including the commentary box as well as a bell to commence the start of play.

 

Earlier this month, the Holkar Stadium became No. 119 to be inducted into the Test match venues affiliated with the ICC courtesy of the fact that the final Test between India and New Zealand was played at the venue. Besides hosting several ODIs, this magnificent cricket stadium has also been the home ground for the Gujarat Lions in the Indian Premier League.

[tweaker]

There may be two Indian Test debuts on Wednesday. One is the venue - Rajkot. The other could be Hardik Pandya or Karun Nair. Both men spent a lot of time in the nets three days before the series-opener against England.

 

Pandya, an allrounder, was bowling for the most part. His presence in the squad was a bit of a surprise. It was his first Test call-up and starkly still, he has played only 16 first-class matches over the past three years. His ability to clock 140kph and a mindset made stronger by his time with the India A team under the supervision of Rahul Dravid has given him a leg-up. Most of the shots he played at training as a pleasant-ish morning gave way into afternoon heat were drives along the ground.

 

Karun, though, is the better batsman. He made back-to-back-to-back centuries in his maiden first-class season to help Karnataka win the Ranji Trophy title in 2013-14. He averages more than 52 in first-class cricket, and has started the current season with scores of 74, 54*, 53 and 145.

 

Now, he was receiving throwdowns from one of Karnataka's greatest cricketers and the current India coach Anil Kumble and when that was done, he faced up to R Ashwin for a little while. Nair was among the last to leave after practice.

The choice, then, may hinge on what type of pitch is provided for the first Test. If it turns early, R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja will bet on themselves to take care of England's batsmen before they cause too much trouble and India might ponder batting reinforcement to make sure the opposition struggles to return the favour. Nair probably edges ahead in this scenario.

 

If not - if it is a pitch where a batsman has to be prised out, then having an allrounder like Pandya becomes a huge asset. He can give the main bowlers a break, which may prove vital regardless of conditions underfoot. The heat in Rajkot can be quite sapping and temperatures are expected to be in the mid-30s during the Test.

 

"Whether it is a short glimpse in T20s or even in the [New Zealand] one-dayers when he bowled in Dharamsala and batted in Delhi, we could see that he is a quality player and that's why we have backed him to get him into the Test squad because we understand the importance of an allrounder, the importance of a fifth bowler," Kumble said of Pandya. "If someone can bowl 140 and give you the option of batting really well lower down the order, that's a great option to have. So we are really looking forward to seeing how Hardik develops.

 

"Karun is certainly someone we have kept a close eye on and backed him for all the things he has done in domestic cricket. There was a little bit of talk of him not performing for India A in Australia but what we are looking at is consistency and he has done all the hard work and that's why he was a part of the [squad for the Tests against New Zealand] as well and since then he has gone into Ranji Trophy and got more runs, got hundreds, and it's opened an opportunity for Karun."

Kumble said India hadn't decided on their combination yet.

 

"Everyone is available for selection," he said. "With Hardik being part of the squad, we have more options. This is the first Test in Rajkot, it's a new stadium - we've played one-day and T20 cricket here, but in a Test, we don't know how the wicket is going to be. The looks of it, it looks a good surface. We still have a couple of days, so we'll look at all the combinations."

 

That Pandya and Nair are in with a chance of getting an India cap is also, in part, due to several injuries. KL Rahul, who began the 13-Test-long Indian season as first-choice opener has hamstring trouble, Shikhar Dhawan broke his thumb in the Kolkata Test against New Zealand, and Rohit Sharma will head to London next week for treatment on his thigh and may well miss the ODIs against England.

 

"I know exactly what goes through a player's mind when he's injured and watching the game and somebody else is playing," Kumble said. "Of course, all of us want the team to do well and the player who's replaced also to do well. But having said that, it's important to keep everyone in the loop.

 

"What is most important for a coach to communicate to them is not to look at coming back quickly because that's not going to help that particular individual and also it might let the team down. So it's important that the injured players come back when they feel 100% right."

With respect to that, the team management has asked anyone returning from injury to play a domestic match before an international one. It was for this reason that Bhuvneshwar Kumar - who has regained full fitness after hurting his hamstring at the start of October - wasn't picked for the first two Tests of this series. He can return once he proves himself match-ready.

 

"That's the kind of protocols we have set," Kumble said. "So if someone's injured, he goes back and plays domestic cricket, if there is domestic competition happening, so that he plays under pressure and then comes in, unless there is an emergency or a case-to-case basis we may change that."

Kumble still sympathised with those forced onto the bench. "It's unfortunate that someone like KL Rahul who has batted brilliantly since the time he has made his international debut in all the three formats is missing out. But we are hoping that he comes back soon. So is Bhuvi. So is Shikhar. Unfortunate that he still hasn't recovered. Big blow for Rohit, unfortunately the timing of his injury wasn't ideal for him. He was really doing well in the Test format."

 

Source espncricinfo

[tweaker]

Former England captain Geoff Boycott said "Everybody knows who is the favourite. It is not like a horse race where everyone is struggling to figure out who the winner will be. Here, it is a one-horse race as India are playing at home. India will have to play really bad cricket to lose to England," 

 

At the same time, Boycott felt it won't be India all the way. "Foreign teams have found it difficult to adjust with the climatic and pitch conditions in India, but England will not be the same as they have played in a neighbouring country (Bangladesh) where pitch conditions are similar. That should help the English team settle down quickly.

 

"England have spent good time in Bangladesh, so it will not be a bad situation for them to adapt. The Bangladesh experience should help England fight here in India. Moreover, injuries to Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan should help England," said Boycott.

Boycott  felt England have depth in batting beyond Cook and Joe Root. "Everybody is focusing on Cook and Root. But in lower-middle order we have Moeen Ali, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes and Stuart Broad, all of whom, have anchored the team to victory. I believe it will be difficult for India to win all five Test matches," 

[Vilander]

pfft Injuries to Rohit and Dhawan wont help Eng, but Injury to Rahul will probably.

[Vilander]

The way the English commentators are keeping expectation low, its like a trick, somethings up or they know something we dont. 

[tweaker]

Former England player says " It will be very tough," Shah says, though he believes that England can give India "a good fight" if their batting shows more resolve than in Bangladesh.

 

"You're not going to blast the spinners out of the attack there. The batting unit need to use their feet and manoeuvre the ball and get more singles and twos - whoever does that best will be the better batting unit. If we try and blast their spinners, we can get undone. But at the same time if we just block, block, block that's not the right way to go about it. If we get stuck and then play the big shot, that's a problem. You need to be busy and not allow them to settle."

 

He urges Duckett and England's flamboyant middle order to trust their instincts against spin, just as he did a decade ago. "They will play the game that's got them to international cricket, they can't just change. If someone wants to run down and use their feet let them - that's probably what they're comfortable doing. The same if they want to sweep or reverse sweep."

 

Of greater concern to Shah is England's bowling. They do not just have to battle India, but a system at home that has stunted the development of spin bowling over recent years.

 

"It's not our spinners' fault, because they haven't bowled that much in the past five-six years in county cricket. They've bowled a lot more this year but prior to that not that much," he says. "That's perhaps where we'll fall down.

 

"We should make wickets that help spin bowling. There should be a bit of deterioration from day three as opposed to the green seamers that finish in three days. That's not real first-class cricket. Batsmen are forgetting how to play for five or six hours: they're having to play a lot more aggressively because they realise that sooner or later there's a good ball around the corner. In Test cricket you've got to know how to put a five- or six-hour hundred together. If you haven't practised it how are you going to know how to do it in a Test?"

[tweaker]

Lancashire batsman Haseeb Hameed will become the youngest debutant to open for England in Test cricket, in the first match against India in Rajkot.

 

Hameed, aged 19 and 297 days by the time the game starts, will become England's fifth-youngest Test debutant, and Alastair Cook's tenth opening partner since the 2012.

 

Ben Duckett, who opened the batting in Bangladesh and made a sparky half-century in his final innings of the series, will move down to No. 4 to accommodate Hameed. Gary Ballance, who scored just 24 runs in four innings in Bangladesh, was dropped from the XI for Rajkot.

[vishalvirsingh]

Quote

with DRS.. there will be many LBW decisions and I guess Umesh Yadav will benefit as he does create a lot of LBW options.

 

 

[mancalledsting]

4-0 to India...just in case one test gets washed out. 

[tweaker]

Virat Kohli has said he was "thankful" for India's tour of England in 2014, when he totalled 134 runs in five Tests, because it has led to his becoming a "really improved cricketer".

 

"I can put it very simply as that was a phase I didn't perform very well and it happened to be England," Kohli said on the eve the first Test of the home series against England in Rajkot. "Could have been any other country in the world.

 

"I just take it as a setback in my career and not motivate myself in a way that I have to prove people wrong or have to do something special against a particular opposition. For me, I'm playing a cricket ball, be it any game, any opposition, anywhere in the world. Those things do not change for me so I don't put those things in my head"

 

 

Kohli had seemed an anxious batsman in conditions that assisted sideways movement, and against bowlers capable of troubling him over after over. To complicate matters, a strength that had made him so dominant in one-day cricket became a weakness - his tendency to hit the ball with hard hands. Over 10 innings, never did he last more than 75 balls at the crease.  

 

Upon his return home, Kohli concentrated on managing this weakness. He had a few sessions with Sachin Tendulkar at the Wankhede Stadium to assess flaws in his game. After the Australia tour later that year, he narrowed his stance considerably. The wider stance served him well in Australia, but the new one helped him stay more upright when facing the ball, and better balanced to press forward or push back. Couple that with better judgement outside his off stump, and the result was Kohli's averaging 54.80 in 31 innings since August 2014. He has been able to convert seven out of ten fifty-plus scores into hundreds, including two double-hundreds.

 

This has, in turn, given Kohli the confidence to look back on a tough stage of his career as just that and not think himself weak against a particular opposition. 

 

While Kohli has not often faced conditions where the ball jags around as much as it does in England, those statistics indicate he has not only been careful to start well - avoiding playing away from his body - but also trust in his ability once he got set. The cover drive is a richly productive stroke for him and Kohli has not abandoned it because it could get him out; during the 200 in Antigua, he understood the pitch was good enough to hit through the line and began doing so quite early.

 

Kohli's skill and quickness in addressing an issue - whether it was gaining strength to hit sixes in limited-overs cricket or pacing himself to bat long in Tests - has made him a fierce adversary. He expects the same from his team-mates as well.

 

"On the field, the one thing that we always maintain is the intensity has to be high all the time because you want to make the opposition feel as if you can't afford to make a mistake rather than giving them an opportunity to get into the game," he said. "Those are the things we focus on, pretty small targets. We don't focus on things too far into the future."

 

India face England after whitewashing New Zealand 3-0 and reclaiming the No. 1 ranking in Tests. They allowed Kane Williamson only one score of fifty or more. They robbed Ross Taylor of confidence. They had the resources to exploit a turning track in Kanpur, a seaming track in Kolkata, and a basic subcontinent track in Indore. India coach Anil Kumble was particularly pleased that barring one innings, his bowlers have been able to take 20 wickets in every Test since the Caribbean tour. While that was praise of the players' ability, Kohli spoke about the mind-set the team has adopted.

 

"The mind set is not to compete anymore, we want to win series, win Test matches, and for that we need to be at our A-game all the time," he said. "And even keep improving on your A-game as well. The guys are ready for the challenge. I think these kind of matches and series are something you play for, against top sides, it tests your character, it tests your skill and you come out as a better cricketer regardless of the result.

 

"This team has bought into the idea that a collective team performance is far better than an individual standing out and team not winning. That's one thing that's really been pleasing as captain in this particular team. Everyone is really selfless, they play for the side, they play for what the team demands in different situations and that's the best quality of the side."

 

Source espncricinfo

[tweaker]

Joe Root is arguably England’s best batsman and the rankings don’t lie – he is no. 2 in Test cricket, no. 7 in one-day internationals and fourth in the Twenty20 format. But Indian captain Virat Kohli, who recently produced a superb batting spectacle in Antigua to become the first Indian captain to score a double hundred away from home, is worthy competition and can himself claim the tag of the world’s current best batsman, having successfully proved himself across every format. Australia’s Steve Smith (42 Tests, 14 centuries) and New Zealand’s Kane Williamson (49 Tests, 13 centuries), add class to the competition.

 

Though debates continue to rage whether Kohli or Root is better - with both posting double-centuries in the last week - we must also remember that Root’s contributions have led to more team victories than Kohli’s, especially in Tests. However, we have a long way to go before we can settle the question. While Kohli in ODIs and Root in Tests hold the edge for now, here is an in-depth analysis to help figure out who is more worthy to be the champion of the cricketing world.Test Match

PLAYER    MAT    INNS    RUNS     AVE    100    50
KOHLI    48    82    3554    45.56    13    12
ROOT    48    88    4103    53.28    10    23

Having recently scored double centuries in their  respective ongoing series against New Zealand and Pakistan, Kohli and Root, two modern prodigies have again staked their claim to being the greatest in the longest format, in the current era. Both Root and Kohli are classical batsmen and, while the English international has 10 centuries from 44 Tests and an astounding average of 53.28, the Indian captain has notched up 13 tons in 48 matches with an impressive 45.56 average.

[tweaker]

England playing well.

 

[WC2011INDIA]

This is a jinx thread.

[YCCC]

4-0 if no third innings collapse in this Test

[tweaker]

India 325/4 

Trailing by 212 runs .