Well there’s always something about a five match Test series. In a 2 or 3 match series, teams can get away with one victory or a draw here and there but a five match series allows the two teams to comeback and correct their mistakes and produce more drama.
After the game at Lord's, we believed that the series is well and truly in India’s hands but England made a strong comeback. After Leeds, we all feared that this could be a repeat of the 2014 series where India started brilliantly and then faded away but this Indian team has the habit of fighting back against all the odds and thereby proving that they are the best in the world.
CAN THEY REPEAT 2007’s GLORY ?
The Indian Test team were generally considered as lions at home and lambs away from the subcontinent but that has definitely changed in the past three years where India have won 8 tests in SENA countries (equal to the period between 1990 to 2017). It has been 14 years since India won a Test series in England when it happened under Dravid's captaincy. In 2018, India had a fairly good team to achieve this but they couldn’t replicate the performance on the field and this is certainly the closest and the best chance to achieve glory.
WILL ASHWIN PLAY ?
The million dollar question is “Will Ashwin play this game''. In the first game, everyone was surprised to see that Ashwin was not in the playing XI. It was stated that this change was based on the pitch condition but he didn’t play even on the pitches where it offers more spin which had considerable amount of rough. After the first Test, Virat said that “India will stick with this 4-1 template‘’ and they’ve continued to do so.
CHANGES FOR THE FINALE :
INDIA : Going into the game with the 2-1 advantage, India might make some changes . Either of Siraj or Bumrah might be rested, with Bumrah being the most likely considering the IPL and WT20 coming up while Siraj looked exhausted and off colour in the 4th game of the series. Shami might replace anyone of them. The biggest concern for the management is the form of Rahane. Kohli went through a similar lean patch in 2014 and at that time he was backed by the management and we expect the same to happen with Rahane. The batting coach Vikram Rathore said that “his form is not a big concern yet ‘’. Even if India decide to replace him with Vihari or Suryakumar, it won’t hurt them much if they fail because that’s what Rahane has been doing all this while and India can’t lose the series from here.
ENGLAND : England have made a number of changes throughout this series and are still not well settled. They started with Sibley followed by Hameed and now Malan and they also dropped Sam Curran. Some of them were forced changes but now for the final Test, quite a few changes are expected. Either of Anderson or Robinson might be rested because this duo has done the bulk of the English bowling for all the 4 games so far (330 overs combined) .Mark Wood, who is fully fit now can replace either of them. Buttler was left out for the 4th Test owing personal reasons and Ollie Pope filled the void in the middle order who got some runs under his belt in that game. With Buttler's return, it will be Bairstow who will be making way for him. Despite some spin being available on the 4th day, Moeen was unable to exploit the conditions to good effect so if the pitch looks a bit dry then they can even consider Jack Leach which seems to be an unlikely move though.
PROBABLE XI
INDIA :
Rohit, Rahul, Pujara, Kohli (c), Rahane, Pant (wk), Jadeja, Thakur, Umesh, Shami, Siraj.
ENGLAND :
Burns, Hameed, Malan, Root (c), Pope, Buttler (wk), Ali, Woakes, Robinson, Overton, Wood.
