Test cricket returns to India this week and it does so with a rerun of the World Test Championship final as India seek out some revenge for their loss to New Zealand in Southampton earlier in the year. This is just a two Test series, the first of which begins in Kanpur on Thursday.
This will be the first time India have played Test cricket under their new coach Rahul Dravid and they will be looking for a fast start. New Zealand start the defence of their World Test Championship trophy in this match and will want a winning start.
India
Even though they didn’t win the World Test Championship earlier in the year, the Indians are probably widely regarded as the number one Test team at present and a lot of the reason for that is how strong they are at home. They have another chance here to showcase that and will be expected to dominate in conditions in which they flourish much more than their opposition. This is the first series with Rahul Dravid as coach so there will be a scrutiny on their play but there is rarely an India side which takes the field without such attention on them.
You would expect the India spinners to be the ones assigned a large part of the workload, and while they are likely to prosper in the conditions, it will be interesting to see if they are backed up with the bat. Sometimes their batters have failed to master the conditions which has led to low scoring matches. If that happens here then we saw in the World Test Championship final that New Zealand are the sort of side who can hang around and be dangerous.
New Zealand
One of the reasons why New Zealand made it through to the World Test Championship final in the first place was because of their ability to play in all conditions however they are still not the best in Asia, although the variety in their bowling attack often keeps them competitive in this part of the world. Even allowing for that though, this will be a tough assignment for the Kiwis particularly as it is only a couple of weeks ago they were losing in the final of the T20 World Cup.
If New Zealand are going to be competitive in this match and potentially push to win it not only could they do with winning the toss but they need to bat well. They might not need the ocean of runs that you might think in this part of the world but they don’t need to lose wickets in bunches. If they can bat time and put up competitive score with the bat then you would think they have the attack to stay close throughout this one.
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Team News
India have shown where this series lies in their immediate priorities. In fairness they have a lot of cricket on the horizon and they have chosen to rest Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Shami as a result of that. That means Ajinkya Rahane will captain the side and Wriddhiman Saha gets a chance to keep.
New Zealand have chosen to leave Colin de Grandhomme and Trent Boult out of their side while Devon Conway remains missing with an injury. That might see Will Young opening the batting. Tom Blundell is taking over from the retired BJ Watling as the keeper.
Betting
When you look at the match betting India are solid odds on, which is probably fair enough but when you consider the talent they are not utilising this week then I’m not sure I want to be steaming into that, at least not until we know who wins the toss and bats first. I think it is fair to say that spin is going to rule the roost this week though. No encouragement will be given to the likes of Neil Wagner and Kyle Jamieson or Tim Southee for that matter so I’ll take the performance of an Indian spinner.
Ravi Jadeja has been in fine form with the ball in the T20 format in recent times and he might be just as dangerous in this format as well. Admittedly I think his impact on this match will be stronger if Axar Patel doesn’t play but even then Jadeja should see plenty of action with the ball to take a large chunk of the 131.5 target off of his performance. He’ll go better than the other two spinners with the bat particularly with the main New Zealand spinners turning the ball into his pads. He is also a teammate of Mitchell Santner at the Chennai Super Kings so he’ll know all about him. I like Jadeja to cover 131.5 points here.
Tips
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