Part of many an English summers in his playing days, former India skipper Mohammad Azharuddin feels the Indian team should go in with two spinners — Ravichandran Ashwin and Kuldeep Yadav in the Test series against England as wickets would be dry during this time of the year.<\/p>\n
Azhar, who was part of the Indian side that beat England in their own backyard in 1986, said it was India\u2019s best chance to trump England in the five-match Test series starting next week in Birmingham as the Virat Kohli-led side is strong in all departments of the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cEngland will find it very difficult to dislodge India because they don\u2019t have a good bowling attack. We have a very strong side. There are only two (good) bowlers they have — (James) Anderson and (Stuart) Broad, but they are injury prone and in the twilight of their careers,\u201d Azhar told PTI in an interview on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The former Indian skipper said India should play Yadav as the England side did struggle against him in the limited-overs games.<\/p>\n
Azhar said though the team combination depends on the wickets that are on offer, the best combination would be three fast bowlers and two spinners.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s a green pitch then they may go with 4-1, but I think 3-2 will be a better combination if you want to win. Because, later the pitches will get dry. It will be hot and the pitches would offer turn especially on the last two days,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only chance England will have is, if they give green tops, but if they give green tops they will also struggle, because we also have very good swing bowlers,\u201d said Azhar.<\/p>\n
The former skipper lavished praise on Yadav and said he should be picked on form.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is performing so he should be picked and the England side is struggling (against) him. Ashwin and Yadav should play. I don\u2019t think Jadeja will make the cut,\u201d Azhar said.<\/p>\n
However, Azhar felt if the team decided to go for a 4-1 combination, then Ashwin could be the lone spinner because of his experience.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Kohli, during the ODI series, had said that he was tempted to play his \u2018key weapons\u2019 Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal in the upcoming five-Test series against England, considering the wrists-spinners\u2019 stellar performance in the limited-overs leg of the tour.<\/p>\n
Yadav was selected in the Test squad, but Chahal was left out of the 18-man squad India named for the first three Tests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Part of many an English summers in his playing days, former India skipper Mohammad Azharuddin feels the Indian team should go in with two spinners — Ravichandran Ashwin and Kuldeep Yadav in the Test series against England as wickets would be dry during this time of the year. Azhar, who was part of the Indian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36944,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36942\/revisions\/36944"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}