19-year-old Hameed to open England batting in Rajkot Test

DRS will be run on a trial basis during the England series. There’s no guarantee the series will start as scheduled, though, because of a dispute between the Board of Control for Cricket in India and the country’s Supreme Court.

As India prepare to take on England in the first Test at Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Rajkot, former India captain Sourav Ganguly said the hosts should play on pitches.

Indian cricket has been in turmoil since a ruling by the Supreme Court into the domestic administration of the game.

Ballance scored just 24 runs in four innings in Bangladesh while Duckett struggled in his first three innings before scoring a fighting 56 in Dhaka.

Yet of his 99 Test appearances to date, only three have come in India.

However, that expansive future is some way off, and for now Hameed will rely on his defensive technique to occupy the crease in the sub-continent and try and accumulate enough runs to give England a solid base from which to launch their powerful lower order. “Gary hasn’t scored the runs he would have liked”.

England’s captain since 2012, Cook Tuesday sought to clarify his position in the pre-match press conference of the opening Test against India starting Wednesday. But as far as captain Kohli is concerned, he will do well by not paying any attention to the “payback time” hoopla.

Cook suggested, however, in an interview with The Cricketer magazine that his appetite for the job may be diminishing, saying: “Deep down I don’t know how much longer I am going to carry on”.

The inclusion of Hameed would push Ben Duckett down to No. 4.

The bowling attack will also be overhauled.

One good news for England has been the prospect of pace spearhead James Anderson returning earlier than expected from a shoulder injury.

India, led by their firebrand captain, Virat Kohli, are top of the world rankings and have won 12 and drawn one of their past 13 Tests at home – including a 3-0 whitewash of New Zealand last month – since Cook’s tourists claimed a historic 2-1 victory here in 2012.

“The mind set is not to compete anymore, we want to win series, win Test matches, and for that we need to be at our A-game all the time”, he said. I know it’s not possible to do it (win series) all the time but we have that vision of winning Test matches and more importantly, win a series. However, the Indian skipper is unlikely to lose his sleep over it.

In case of a draw, India, now with 115 points, will finish 113 points and will, thus, be untouchable even if Australia bounces back to win the remaining two Tests against South Africa or if Pakistan wins both the Tests against New Zealand.