After successfully conquering the Lord's, Team India will look to take unassailable lead when they take field at Headingley. India and England have faced each other for a total of 6 times at Leeds in the Test cricket arena where England came out victorious 3 times while 2 were won by the touring Indian side with one ending in a draw. India have won both the last 2 Tests that they played at Leeds. On the last occasion when the Indian team played at Leeds, they won by an inning and 46 runs with India's number 3, 4 and 5 each scoring a century which was also the last such instance.
Indian team has been full on confidence with all the players contributing in team's victory and though there were few areas to look upon for the touring side before the series began but India have ticked each box in the two games so far. The Indian openers are giving good starts and the middle order performed well in the previous game, with the lower middle order and tail contributing with the bat and the bowlers taking wickets at regular intervals, India walk in as favourites once again. On the other hand, there's no answer to England woes, they already were without Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer when the series begun and post just 2 games into series, they have lost Stuart Broad and Mark Wood. Their batting is relying by a very thin thread on Joe Root and to some extent Jonny Bairstow, other than this no other batter from England has crossed the 100 run mark in this series. In the bowling department as well, a 39 year old pacer is fighting a lone battle for them in every game with some support from Robinson.
Coming to the team combination, India don't really need the changes but given they will be playing the next test at Leeds and with the tail also contributing with the bat, the team will be tempted to bring Ashwin in place of Ravindra Jadeja. Ashwin can provide breakthroughs with the ball which has not been the case with Ravindra Jadeja. England will really need to figure out a way to score runs against this mighty Indian bowling lineup as they need really need someone to step up and score runs for the side.
Our top 4 players to watch out for in this Test are:
1) V Kohli
2) O Robinson
3) M Shami
4) J Bairstow
SQUADS
India: Virat Kohli (Capt), Rohit Sharma, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Suryakumar Yadav, Prithvi Shaw, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Hanuma Vihari, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Wriddhiman Saha, Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav
England: Joe Root (Capt), Rory Burns, Jos buttler (wk),Mark wood, Sam Curran, James Anderson, Jonny Bairstow, Moeen Ali, Zak Crawley, Haseeb Hameed, Dan Lawrence, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Craig Overton, Saqib Mohamood, Dawid Malan
PROBABLE PLAYING XIs
India: Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli (Capt), Ajinkya Rahane, Rishabh Pant, R Ashwin, Ishant Sharma Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Jasprit Bumrah
England: Rory Burns, Haseeb Hameed, Joe Root (Capt), Jonny Bairstow, Dan Lawrence, Moeen Ali, Jos Buttler (WK), Sam Curran, Ollie Robinson, Craig Overton, James Anderson
HOW, WHEN & WHERE TO WATCH
The venue of the match is Headingley, Leeds. The match will start at 3:30pm IST. The live streaming would be available on the Sony LIV App and it'd be televised on the Sony Sports Network.
