Spotlight on Indian batsmen in second Test vs England

London, Aug 8: After a poor show in the opening Test match against England, the Indian batsmen would like to rectify their mistakes and apply themselves diligently when India will face the hosts in the second match of the five-match series, starting here on Thursday.

In both the innings of the first Test which the tourists lost by 31 runs, all the batsmen, apart from skipper Virat Kohli failed. No other batters supported Kohli, who at the other hand fought valiantly. Kohli scored 149 in the first innings while the other batsmen could only score 107 runs combined. The story of the second innings was more or less the same as Kohli top-scored with 51 runs in 93 balls.

So, in the second test, the Indian team management may make a few changes in the batting department, bringing in experienced batsman Cheteshwar Pujara in place of Lokesh Rahul, who scored 4 and 13 runs respectively in both the innings.

The management could also replace underperforming opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan with Pujara and ask Rahul to open the innings with Murali Vijay.

In order to win the second Test, the batsmen — Ajinkya Rahane, Hardik Pandya, Vijay, Dinesh Karthik — need to click in unison because the bowlers are doing their job handsomely. Talking about the bowling, in both the innings off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin scalped four and three wickets respectively. He was well supported by pacers Ishant Sharma and Mohammad Shami. Umesh Yadav was also impactful.

Pacer Jasprit Bumrah has been ruled out of the second Test as he has not fully recovered from a left thumb injury, bowling coach Bharat Arun confirmed on Tuesday.

Despite that the team management could make a few changes, bringing in a second spinner to add more firepower, depending on the nature of the wicket at Lord’s. (IANS)