India vs England 2nd Test: Can Team India be masters at Lord’s? | Cricket News – Times of India

India’s potent bowling attack, their spirited and tireless spells and the lower order’s ability to scrape the barrel of their batting talent and string together crucial runs have masked a crucial deficiency: the batting has been underperforming over the last 20 months.
Consider this: Batsmen in India’s engine room in the middle-order, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane, have scored only one hundred between them since January 2020. That ton, a fine amalgam of denial, class and steel from Rahane, helped India win the Boxing Day Test and script a turnaround of Olympian proportions after the 36 all out at Adelaide. It is also only one of the four hundreds scored by India since January 2020.
Rohit Sharma, R Ashwin and Rishabh Pant are other members in that thinly populated three-figure club.

In the same period, their rivals have scored 12 tons and their talisman and captain, Joe Root, has scored four, including two against India.
In the first Test at Trent Bridge too, which the visitors dominated and were denied victory only because of rain, it was Root who was the standout batsman across both sides.

England legends like Geoffrey Boycott and perceptive analysts like former skipper Michael Atherton have conducted a prickly post-mortem of the batsmen’s technique, or the lack of it. Coach Chris Silverwood too has put the rest of the batsmen on notice and read out the riot act.
That India go into the second Test starting at Lord’s against England from Thursday as overwhelming favourites only shows how badly other England players have been performing and how whimsical and myopic some of the home team’s selection calls have been in the name of “rotation”.

India too have some issues with the team combination. It was learnt late on Wednesday that Shardul Thakur, who was controversially picked ahead of in-form off-spinner R Ashwin as the fourth seamer for the first Test, has developed a hamstring niggle and has been ruled out of the second Test.
Will that prompt Kohli to give Ashwin the nod? Fair weather is forecast for the first three days and Day Five, which could mean dry conditions and a favourable surface for the 400-plus wicket man to spin his web.
Ashwin’s presence also gives the illusion of the team having some batting muscle lower down. One says illusion because despite his match-saving Sydney heroics with Hanuma Vihari early in the year, he averages an unimpressive 13.87 away from home in the five Tests he has featured in since 2020, with two ducks. His rival for the spot and spin twin Ravindra Jadeja has also played five Tests away since 2020 but averages 39.40.

It’s a no-contest on who between the two will be pencilled in first on the team sheet. If Kohli chooses to be conservative, which he is not, he can choose to play Hanuma Vihari in place of Thakur, which gives the team the cushion of a proper batsman at No.6 and allows Pant and Jadeja to bat at No.7 and 8.
Or he can play Ishant Sharma, who had a lengthy spell in the nets on Monday, and retain the template of four seamers and Jadeja to do the spin job. Ishant will have fond memories of Lord’s. His spell of 7/74 helped India win here in 2014 and take a 1-0 lead before things spectacularly unravelled.
Lord’s has given Indian cricket some defining moments, most notably the World Cup win in 1983 and the NatWest Trophy win in 2002.
If India play to potential, another important win may come in their kitty