Despite it being back to back test matches the likelihood is that the sides will remain unchanged, especially the Indian team although it wouldn't surprise me too much if Ben Stokes didn't play the whole of this test series, while James Anderson did have an altercation with Ravi Jadeja at Trent Bridge that is being looked at by the ICC who are deciding on what to do with the pair. All in all it should be unchanged teams which means the talk ahead of the game will be much of the same as it was last time with India's seam bowlers not impressing as much with Ishant Sharma looking clearly like the biggest threat, while England's top order looks a little frail with Alastair Cook failing again and Ian Bell starting to feel some pressure too.
England
England's top order still struggled on a flat pitch in the first test at Trent Bridge in the one innings they did have with Alastair Cook failing again and you really feel he has 4 tests to make runs and save his place that things are getting that desperate. Ian Bell is also looking like he's feeling the pressure of being a huge player in England's middle order now that the order is less experienced and he is at the heart of the middle order, where things for him didn't use to be as pressured when the middle order was full of talent and he was allowed to bat at 5. Sam Robson and Gary Ballance did look impressive again at Trent Bridge though while Joe Root played another big innings with the bat to get England out of a quite tricky situation on day 4. Matt Prior is also continuing to struggle and Ben Stokes may have been batting at No.8 but he'd have wanted more than a duck that he got and didn't really back up with the ball either to be honest taking 0 wickets in the 2nd innings while Alastair Cook was even able to pick up his first test wicket in some quite funny scenes. Prior and Stokes will want good games here if they both play of course knowing that guys like Buttler and Jordan are breathing down their necks.For the bowling as a whole I think James Anderson is feeling a lot of pressure as the leader of attack that is struggling on unresponsive pitches, and in my mind there is absolutely no way that he can last this series without injury or his performances really dropping off. Stuart Broad seemed to be bowling ok and was really quite economical in the first innings taking a couple of wickets and he could really be a key bowler in this series if Anderson is to be rested at some stage and they will want to keep Broad as fit as possible given his winter injury problems. Liam Plunkett and Ben Stokes also offer too very similar things as bowlers which is why I don't necessarily like the tactic of playing them both as they are clearly in the side to do a similar job, especially on flatter pitches which is try and get any pace they can and bang the ball into the pitch with some short pitched stuff to try trouble the Indian batsmen.
Key Man: In my opinion Alastair Cook is in desperate need of some runs in this series and to get them at Lord's would certainly be special. His captaincy looked a lot better in the first test so in my opinion he just needs to back up his place in the side with some runs in a batting line-up that is prone to a big collapse. After all the captain should lead from the front.
India
India's batting look reasonably solid in the first test although it did take a 100 run partnership for the last wicket for them to get up to a decent total in the first innings and the likes of Dhawan and Kohli will feel like they missed out a little on that pitch by not making more. Pujara was very impressive from what I saw of him and apparently he has modelled himself a lot on Rahul Dravid which let's face it is never a bad thing. Murali Vijay will be targeted early as the big wicket for England after his first innings century while MS Dhoni can quickly turn things around like in the first innings if he plays his shots and starts to give the England bowlers a little punishment. The all-rounders in Stuart Binny and Ravi Jadeja will be looking to keep making runs as they did more in the second innings at Trent Bridge, especially Binny who will probably the man that would be most likely to make way for a 2nd spinner.India's bowling certainly didn't look complete although it was never going to on that Trent Bridge pitch with Ishant Sharma bowling a great spell and doing most of the work while Kumar also bowled pretty well but I wasn't too impressed with Shami who was always going to struggle there so this test match was always going to be a big one for him. I'm not sure it necessarily works as well for India to play Ravi Jadeja without Ravi Ashwin and I think they ultimately regretted doing that and that could provide a change for Lord's with Binny showing that his bowling is pretty dispensable not bowling very well at all and there's no way he'll play out all 5 matches here. Ishant Sharma's pace though will be the key here as he is very much the leader of the attack and in my view he'll have a lot of work to do again in this match if the Lord's pitch is typically flat.
Key Man: As I say it certainly seemed that Ishant Sharma carried the Indian bowling line-up with his great spell on Friday afternoon and his pace and general threat with leave England more worried about him than they will be about any other bowler. If India are to take 20 wickets and win the game he'll have to take a large majority.
Whatever happens it should be a great test match again and hopefully this time we can get a result on what will hopefully be a pitch with some life in it but I wouldn't be holding out too much hope if I was a seamer coming to bowl on it but you never know we may actually see an even contest between bat and ball this time around.
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