IND vs ENG, 4th Test, Day 1: Gill & Co Head Into A Must-Win At Old Trafford

Published on the cusp of play, #PreMatchMemo sets the scene before each Test — spotlighting arcs, angles, and all that’s in play before the first ball is bowled.

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AFTER A BRIEF SOJOURN down to London, Test cricket returns to the North — Manchester’s Old Trafford, to be precise. Having let slip the third Test by a hair’s breadth (or 22 measly runs to be precise), India faces a must-win situation. After all, a draw or a defeat will ensure that England retains the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy. But it isn’t just Ben Stokes and Co that the visiting team must overcome; it’s also the weather conditions. The forecast, or as it stands at the time of writing anyway, isn’t great. According to Accuweather, the first, second and fifth day of the Test will see some rain, with the third and fourth days set to provide drier spells. How will this play into Team India’s planning? We’ll get into it shortly.

For now, the hosts welcome spinning allrounder Liam Dawson to the red-ball format for the first time in eight years. He replaces Shoaib Bashir, who, as readers may recall, broke a finger but returned valiantly to the field to dismiss Mohammed Siraj and win England the third Test. While that seems to be the only change to the England XI, the circumstances in the away camp are a bit more complicated. Nitish Kumar Reddy, Akash Deep and Arshdeep Singh will be missing out due to injury and Haryana (and Chennai Super Kings) allrounder Anshul Kamboj has been named as cover.

Whether it’s he or Kuldeep Yadav who takes the final vacant berth in the Indian XI remains to be seen. Elsewhere, there’s been word that Dhruv Jurel might essay the role of wicketkeeper and Rishabh Pant could play as a batter in case the latter has yet to shake off his finger injury. An extra batter will mean one less bowler, and it seems unlikely India will want to take that risk. And the third key selection-related dilemma is whether the ‘Karun Nair at No 3’ experiment persists or whether his inability to kick on from solid starts will see Sai Sudharsan return to the fold. Only time will tell.

Moving on, a cursory glance at the proverbial ‘tale of the tape’ shows that India’s record at Old Trafford isn’t really anything to write home about. In the nine matches the visitors have played at this venue thus far, the record stands at five draws, four losses and zero wins. The hosts, on the other hand, boast an extremely formidable record at this ground. For starters, they haven’t lost a single match at this venue over the course of the present decade. And this century, they’ve only been bested twice (by Australia in 2019 and Pakistan in 2001). That brings England’s record since 2000 to 20 matches played, 14 won, four drawn and two lost. It’s worth keeping in mind, however, that India didn’t have the greatest record at Edgbaston either… until the whopping 336-run victory earlier this month. Records, as they say, are meant to be broken.

THE FINER DETAILS

The absence of Akash Deep for a burst of raw pace and seam movement when partnerships are getting a bit too pesky will be a loss for India, however, it may also be a blessing in disguise. Considering the cloud cover and rainy conditions, swing is likely to come into play in a much bigger way than in the previous three Tests. That’s where Siraj, Bumrah and Prasidh Krishna could prove to be extremely valuable for the visitors. All three are capable of extracting prodigious movement off the pitch and in the air, and this will give the English batters a new challenge to tackle in this series.

This, then, is an appropriate point at which to return to the topic of the weather. As stated above, a draw will be far more acceptable to the hosts than it will to visitors, and for the latter, this means that 20 English wickets will have to be claimed in a potentially rain-hit Test. India’s brain trust will have taken keen note of the fact that 35-year-old Dawson has scored over 10,000 runs in First Class cricket. And considering that an outsized percentage of those were scored in English conditions, he could be a tough nut to crack lower down the order.

This is where it gets a little tricky, because Shubman Gill and the Indian team will be acutely aware that their opponents put on 116 for the last three wickets in the last Test. With Dawson in to bolster that lower order, mopping up the tail could prove more challenging than it has in the series so far. The last thing India can afford in a potentially rain-affected game is an opposition tail overstaying its welcome with its wagging. And given everything we’ve learned about the Dukes ball in this series, it means bowlers will have to take maximum advantage of the new ball before the orb goes soft and soggy.

And finally, there’s the topic of distractions. Test cricket can be an awfully drab affair if devoid of a bit of spice, confrontation and dare-I-say petulance. So it was quite refreshing to see players getting mildly tetchy, snapping at each other and wantonly invading their opponents’ personal space. Unfortunately, it’s when these mind games and bits of banter begin to distract from the actual playing of the game that the opposing team can take advantage. Gill and his team will do well to put the “10 seconds… 20 seconds… 90 seconds” stuff behind them and focus on the matter at hand. There are, after all, two Test matches to be won.

Karan Pradhan is editor-in-chief of Story Mode, a gaming and gaming-adjacent magazine. Follow him on X/Twitter @karanpradhan_

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