India, despite the loss in Pune, should stick the same team for the second Test against Australia. (Source: Reuters)
India were handed a hammering in the first Test in Pune. An eyebrow-raising 333-run for Australia and their first win in India in 13 years ruffled some feathers with question marks over the side, the team composition and the regular usage of some team members despite poor performances. It also raises question marks over the team’s confidence level after such a defeat – would the team retreat after disappointing effort with the bat or see it as a chance to prove itself and make a comeback – the answer would depend on the eleven men that step on to the field. If their leader, Virat Kohli, is to believed, team India would come back stronger and like they did back in Galle – turn things around and look to string together a winning streak once again.
For that, Kohli, team India management need to stick to the same composition that suffered that abysmal show in Pune. This would work in two ways – no one would be more charged to prove the detractors wrong than the team from the first Test and the composition itself, five batsmen, three spinners and two seamers, has been doing the job for the Indian team.
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Bengaluru’s pitch, unlike the one in Pune, is expected to aide both the seam attack and the spin attack. In that regard, tinkering with the combination could prove to be a bad idea. While Kohli has switched around with a combination of six batsmen and five bowlers and seven batsmen and four bowlers producing positive outcomes in both. At home, Kohli has led in 14 Tests with five bowlers employed in nine matches and four bowlers in the rest. The 3-0 series win against New Zealand was done with a four bowler lineup – Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami.
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But if Kohli’s recent words are any indication, it looks probable that India would stick to five bowlers. “If we don’t make the most of our chances, it doesn’t matter how many runs someone ends up scoring. The whole 10 wickets have to be taken twice and that’s something we already know,” he said on Friday in the pre-match press conference.
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