England in seam-bowling dilemma for Vizag Test

It was a tough Test match for the bowlers overall at Rajkot, with England piling on over 500 runs in their first innings and 260/3 in the second.

Cook praised the performance of debutant opener Haseeb Hameed who made 31 and 82 and showed good character and all rounder Ben Stokes who came up with knocks of 128 and 29 not out.

Visakhapatnam turf might not be as friendly as Rajkot was to the English batsmen and Ashwin and Jadeja will likely get back into play in the second Test. Our batting, our bowling and catching is something that this team really prides itself on.

Not too long ago, England were dumped out in Dhaka after losing 10 wickets in a session. England had the opportunity to post a enormous total – as against a big total, yet they did not. England, at that stage, had stretched the lead to 309.

It was left-handed batsman Cook’s 30th Test century and fifth in India, the most for any foreign batsman surpassing Everton Weekes, Clive Lloyd and Hashim Amla who each managed four centuries in India.

That Rahul was playing his Ranji match in Vizianagaram, only about 65 km from Vizag, allowed Rahul to join the squad on Tuesday, which is when India began to train for the Test.

Chasing a target of 310 runs to win, India lost opener Gautam Gambhir for a duck off Chris Woakes’ delivery.

The 28-year-old also confirmed that Lokesh Rahul will replace Gautam Gambhir as the opening partner for Murali Vijay. They were aggressive and dominant in their approach to the game which was visible by the way they took the game to India.

“It’s been a good five days, a hard five days”.

“I am confident we will score the runs and confident we can bowl well enough to put India under pressure if we hit the same standards”.

“He s (Hameed) an unbelievable player, pushing me closer to retirement”.

I don’t see why they haven’t got one anyway. We have done really well in all the three departments over the past three and a half months that I have been a part of this team or even before that. With ACA pumping in the money the stadium was completed and 2003 saw Board President’s XI host New Zealand in a three-day match before a certain Mahendra Singh Dhoni announced himself to the world when India hosted Pakistan with his marauding 148 at the venue’s first ODI.

There were questions marks over the quality of England’s spin bowlers before the game but without any doubt they outperformed their Indian counterparts with legspinner Adil Rashid taking seven wickets.