IND Vs ENG: Jasprit Bumrah And Mohammed Siraj Won't Play All 5 Tests For India, No Clarity On Mohammed Shami

Runners-up in the World Test Championship finals on both of the first two editions India is all set to welcome England for a 5-match Test series at home for the first time since 2020/21. As the visitors will try to upset the hosts in their backyard, the Indian team management has revealed its plans to keep their pace battery charged and fresh for the 2-month-long Test series.

The series commences at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi stadium on January 25th just a week after the T20I series between India and Afghanistan comes to an end. Rahul Dravid’s side is scheduled to play the 2nd T20 this evening at Indore before the series concludes on 17th January at Bengaluru’s Chinnaswamy stadium.

Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, and Mukesh Kumar are the only ones present in the squad (for Afghanistan) who also played in the 1-1 Test series draw in South Africa earlier this month. Senior pacers like Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah have been rested for this series to keep them fresh for the English challenge.

It will be an important series for India for a lot of reasons. First and the most obvious one is that it is their first home Test series in the 2023-25 WTC cycle so they will not be looking to settle for a draw and a series win is their main target. Secondly, the world of cricket has seen India’s sheer dominance at home in red-ball cricket for the last 10-12 years so they will be looking to maintain it this time around as well.

And the third is preventing England from winning a Test series here, something they will be very determined to do, given the fact that the English contingent hasn’t won any red-ball series here since 2012. To ensure that, Rohit Sharma-led India will have to stay fresh and motivated throughout the series which will end in March.

None Of India’s Pacer To Play All The 5 Tests

According to our sources close to BCCI, India’s team management has decided to rotate their pace battery to manage workload as the series has a duration of entire 2 months. So, the players might get fatigued, and constant game time can also increase the chances of injury.

Moreover, pitches here in India are known for their spin-friendly nature and it will be no different in this series as well. So that is another reason why pacers won’t have much of a big role to play as spinners will have most of the chances to pick wickets and pacers could be used to do most of the hard work to upstage English batters.

The Rahul Dravid-led Indian management has included Siraj, Bumrah, Avesh Khan, and Mukesh Kumar for the first two Tests and it will be interesting to see what the pace battery looks like in the next 3 Tests in Saurashtra, Jharkhand, and Dharamshala.