New Delhi: India fielded a surprising three-pronged pace attack on the red soil of Chennai. Subcontinent pitches have generally very little purchase for pacers in comparison to pitches of Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Pacers generally rely on reverse swing most of the time to churn out wickets for them added with the opening spell of the day where wickets fall in chunks.
But, the Indian strategy in Chennai baffled many cricket experts who felt that pacers would not play a dominant role. Contrary to everyone’s expectations, the pacers (both Bangladesh and India) scalped a whopping 20 wickets in the 1st test.
The nature of the pitch in Chennai turned out to be conducive for the pacers as they scalped wickets at will. However, that could change in the second Test, with Kanpur’s Green Park stadium expected to roll out a black soil pitch with low bounce and carry.
Expected changes in the Kanpur Test…
Earlier, there was a call for workload management of Jasprit Bumrah ahead of the Kanpur Test. This could mean resting in form Jasprit Bumrah in the Kanpur Test. Bumrah is expected to play a major role in the Border Gavaskar trophy which could see the bowler bowling in tandem with Siraj.
However, the management can also decide to give Mohammed Siraj a breather for the second test for same reason. They could even hand Yash Dayal a Test debut. Dayal plays for Uttar Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy and so would be familiar with the conditions on offer in Kanpur.
However, the most favourable and possible change can be the inclusion of Kuldeep Yadav who plays his cricket in Kanpur and will get a lot of turn in the black soil of the Green Park stadium.
India squad for the 2nd Test
Rohit Sharma (C), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant (WK), Dhruv Jurel (WK), R Ashwin, R Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohd. Siraj, Akash Deep, Jasprit Bumrah, Yash Dayal