London: Tamed by England in the third Test, India would be looking to take the lead once again when they lock horns in the fourth Test on Thursday at the Kennington Oval. After falling behind to the visitors in the second Test, Joe Root’s men made a superb comeback at Headingley registering a victory by an innings and 76 runs.
Accurate bowling from the England seamers saw India get packed for 78 before the centurion skipper Root himself along the top three batsmen in the line-up powered the hosts to 423/8, taking a solid 345-run lead.
This proved too much to overhaul for the Indians despite the heroics of Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli, three of whom notched up their half-centuries to give India hope after the third day. However, the English bowlers did their job efficiently squishing any hopes for India for a remarkable comeback bundling them out for 278.
Both teams look evenly matched with players that can change the course of the game on their own, however, the possibility of losing game time due to rain, a draw can be a likely outcome.
The inclusion of Dawid Malan at No.3 and Haseeb Hameed being promoted up the order actually worked wonders for England. The good news for the hosts is that Mark Wood has reportedly returned to full fitness and will be in contention for a spot in the line-up on Thursday.
They have also called up Chris Woakes for the fourth Test, with Sam Billings also added to the squad as well acting as a probable cover. Besides that, Jonny Bairstow will probably be keeping wickets as Jos Buttler is set to miss the game. If that happens, one of Ollie Pope and Daniel Lawrence would take his place in the side.
For India, they did have their moments in the series, however, things didn’t go as planned in the last game. There’s been a lot of noise revolving inclusion of Ravichandran Ashwin who can be seen in the game and also considering his batting prowess apart from his bowling in the longest format of the game, he could add cushion to the lower order.
A surprise inclusion of youngster Prasidh Krishna to the squad also opens up options for the management who will be looking to take care of the workload of the seamers. KL Rahul got just 13 runs in three innings since the Lord’s hundred and he’ll be keen to pile up runs again. Skipper Kohli too got a half-century which would boost his morale having been in a rough patch for quite a while now.
