For India, New Faces, Old Woes & One Big Opportunity At Edgbaston | India end the first session on a high, but with Bumrah benched and Edgbaston’s ghosts looming, the outlook remains tense and tricky on Day 1 of the 2nd IND vs ENG Test Match, writes Karan Pradhan .
| AND SO THE INDIAN SUMMER CRICKET CIRCUS rolled into Birmingham. After a first Test that saw the visitors seemingly snatch defeat from the rather gaping jaws of victory (India was the dominant side for vast swathes of the Leeds Test at Headingley before England embarked on a record run-chase), nothing short of a win will do. Admittedly, a 1-0 deficit isn’t insurmountable by any stretch, but it does put a great deal of pressure on a team shorn of the leadership presence of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma (both of whom have announced their retirements from the red ball format) and bowling talisman Jasprit Bumrah (who is only due to play three of the five Tests). Then there’s India’s pedestrian record at Edgbaston, where the team has played eight, lost seven and drawn one ( back in 1986 ). Stream live sports, and the latest films and shows with OTTplay Premium's Power Play monthly pack, for only Rs 149. At the time of writing, India has gone into the lunch break at 98/2 through a combination of sparkling strokemaking and some agricultural hoicks. However, a cursory glance at the scorecard doesn’t quite encapsulate the manner in which the first session of the second Test played out, and where fortunes turned. To get a better idea, one needs to go back to the fourth ball of the sixth over of the innings, bowled by Brydon Carse. Until that point, opener Yashasvi Jaiswal (a centurion in the first Test) had been hopping all over the place, cramped for room on both sides of the wicket. Commentators alluded to the fact that he was falling away while attempting the cut shot in a bid to generate extra power, and that he was struggling with balls aimed at his ribs. It was off that ball, the 34th legal delivery of the innings, though that Jaiswal seemed to come to terms with the magnitude of the occasion. | A muscular drive smashed through the cover point region seemed to be just the tonic to settle his nerves. It also seemed to flick a switch, enabling him to grow into the contest against the English quicks who weren’t doing anything flashy, but were keeping things awfully tight. The loss of his opening partner, KL Rahul, soon after did little to curb his appetite for runs, and with a half-century to his name at lunch, he seems set for another significant contribution to the Indian cause. Test cricket, more than its limited-over counterparts, is built on momentum shifts that are a direct consequence of confidence. And it seemed here that this coruscating boundary would set the tone for Jaiswal’s future endeavours — that were as expansive as they were productive. Eleven hits to the rope are testament to that. Opposite him was Karun Nair, who’d survived a close LBW call early on, but seemed to settle into the rhythm of the contest. Notably, he’d been brought up the order in place of the benched Sai Sudharsan to handle that critical Number 3 spot. Despite the early swings-and-misses, Nair too grew into the game, and alongside the more flamboyant Jaiswal (unbeaten on 62 off 69), appeared to be laying the foundation for a big knock. As it turned out though, and with lunch right around the corner, he succumbed to a rising Carse delivery and fell for a 31 off 50 that was more about what it could have been than what it actually was. While India are well-placed, England will have plenty to chew on over the course of the interval, particularly in terms of how to revive that early spark that kept the Indian openers playing and missing, and how to capitalise on skipper Shubhman Gill yet to find his feet, so to speak. | Flash-forward a few hours, and heading into the second Test, the hosts announced an unchanged XI — somewhat sensibly, because why mess with a winning formula? — while the visitors have rung in the changes. Batter Sudharsan, bowling all-rounder Shardul Thakur and the aforementioned Bumrah will be sitting this one out with pacer Akash Deep, and all-rounders Washington Sundar and Nitish Kumar Reddy taking their spots. This appears to either be an acknowledgment by the Indian think-tank that they got the formula wrong at Headlingley, or a desire to shake things up and perhaps catch the English off-guard. Even before the match got underway, India’s selection appears to have set plenty of tongues wagging with pundits and social media experts alike questioning the decision to bench Bumrah. The logic behind playing the ace fast-bowler for only three Tests is apparently to manage his workload. However, considering the importance of this Test (1-1 after two Tests is very different from 0-2, obviously), it seems strange that the visitors’ best bowler in the first match has been left out. The workload, it’s been argued, could have been managed after India had dragged themselves back into the series. In Ravi Shastri’s opinion , “This is a very important match, they've had a week off… he should be playing this game more than anything else. (This is the game) where you’ve got to counter punch almost straightaway.” | And then there’s the call not to include the man dubbed the ‘best wrist-spinner since Shane Warne’ by Greg Chappell, Kuldeep Yadav. The Edgbaston pitch is supposed to become more spin-friendly as the days go on, and Yadav on a fourth- or fifth-day wicket could be lethal. As it stands, India will be bowling in the fourth innings (having lost the toss and been asked to bat), but Yadav will not be part of the proceedings. It’s worth noting that he’s only played the solitary Test in England thus far (back in 2018) and it was far from a positive outing, with his wicketless performance coming in an innings defeat at Lord’s. Admittedly, that was seven years ago and the bowler has honed his craft since. That said, the lineup for the second Test is what it is, and it’s the one that’ll have to help India buck its poor record at the venue and eke out a win… or avoid defeat, at the very least. Karan Pradhan is editor-in-chief of Story Mode , a gaming and gaming-adjacent magazine. Follow him on X/Twitter . | Like what you read? Get more of what you like. 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