After England's Test match summer got off to an unsuccessful and poor start with a 1-0 series loss in the 2 match series against Sri Lanka, failing to close out the First Test and then falling a couple of balls short of successfully saving the 2nd Test match despite being in total control after the first couple of days, it's now the Indians that are in town for a five test match series that starts tomorrow at Trent Bridge and then takes us to Lord's, the Ageas Bowl, Old Trafford and finishing at The Oval, before 5 one-day internationals and T20 match to complete the English international summer of Cricket.
England have a pretty similar squad assembled for the first test here as they did for the tests against Sri Lanka with Ben Stokes being added in after his successful winter in Australia making a century and taking a 6 wicket haul along the way, while Jos Buttler was called up as cover for Matt Prior who the England camp are pretty confident will be fit to play but that will certainly give Buttler even further incentive if Prior can't perform.
A lot has changed though since India were last here with greats like Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar long gone while the likes of Zaheer Khan and Virender Sehwag are also no longer in the side. What does arrive at Trent Bridge though is a squad full of top young players like the amazing Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay, Pujara, Kohli, Ajkinya Rahane, Ravi Jadeja, while guys like Ishant Sharma and MS Dhoni offer a bigger deal of experience having played on English test tours previously. The likes of B Kumar and Mohammed Shami are also expected to be in the bowling line-up that will have a great deal of inexperience and that may lead to India's downfall.
England
As I mentioned earlier this team will very much be similar to the team that played Sri Lanka earlier this summer, with 1 possible change seeing Chris Jordan make way for Ben Stokes who was very impressive in Australia and England had to quickly had to find a path into the team. With the batting things will be unchanged with everyone going nicely in the Sri Lanka series with hundreds for all of Balance, Robson, Root and Ali but it's the experienced guys like captain Cook and Ian Bell that will need to be on top form to steer what is still a very inexperienced batting line-up in the right direction as I could see several middle order collapses coming if the young lads can't fire in every game which won't happen over a 5 match series and you wouldn't expect it to. In big 5 match series like this you're looking for your captain to step up and do his job leading from the front. Alastair Cook hasn't led from the front with the bat for a very long time now and in my opinion he's got this series to make some big runs and save his job because England soon won't be able to justify keeping him in the side.
As for England's bowling you'd expect the man of the series against Sri Lanka in James Anderson to lead from the front on his favourite ground to bowl on and if conditions are very kind to him this week then he could rip through an Indian batting line-up that doesn't have all that much experience in these tough English conditions. Stuart Broad and Liam Plunkett also bowled well against Sri Lanka and I expect them to go well again in this series, while Ben Stokes return sets up what could certainly be an attack of short pitched bowling that will be unleashed on the Indian batsmen, but what worries me and many English fans is the lack of a genuine spin on a pitch here that will be a hard surface and could spin later on in the match if we have dry weather and surely with tests to come at Old Trafford and The Oval, England will need to bring in a front line spinner as they can't expect Moeen Ali to do all of the work to the standard that Graeme Swann most recently set.
Key Man: James Anderson will thrive on of his favourite and best grounds to bowl on here, and he seemed to be back to top form against Sri Lankan bowling very quickly once again and swinging the ball round corners. If conditions are good for him he could single-handedly rip through the Indian order.
India
As I've said India do look quite inexperienced when it comes to playing in Indian conditions, even though they do have a very good batting line-up and I've been very impressed of what I've seen of Dhawan so far, while Virat Kohli is quickly becoming one of the best batsmen in the modern game. The likes of Murali Vijay and Rahane are also very impressive and MS Dhoni will have to put in a big shift as he's expected to bat at 6 with 2 all-rounders to follow him. For me though Virat Kohli is the batsman I expect to score the heaviest in this series and I think how he goes will be the key to how the series turns out. With inexperience surrounding him in the middle order poor performances could see this Indian side fall in a heap and post some quite low scores just as they did on their last tour of England.
The bowlers meanwhile are also much changed from that last trip and it will be very interesting to see how they go for the first time in English except for Ishant Sharma who will have a growing amount of weight on his shoulders since that last tour. Sharma though is a class performer when he is on top form and he bowls at a very good pace which is something the England order didn't have to deal with too much against Sri Lanka and Ishant could well be the man that puts a bit of fear into the English batsmen with some fiery bowling. Ravindra Jadeja will have a big part to play as well in the series and as a young player I've been equally impressed with his bowling as I have his batting and he has a very long test career in front of him and with the England boys always struggling against spin he will have another big role to play. However, the possible inexperience of B Kumar and Mohammed Shami could offer England a little more to cheer during the test series and I could see a lot of changes coming to the Indian line-up where those 2 bowlers are concerned especially with the 4th bowler when we get to the more spin friendly Old Trafford and Oval surfaces.
Key Man: Virat Kohli will have a lot of responsibility in the Indian middle order because if he fails the whole team could crumble around him and England could bowl them out for a cheap score but if he settles in and starts to score heavy, all of the pressure will be back on England's seam attack.
This should be a very interesting and intriguing test match in my opinion with plenty of players to keep an eye for the rest of the series to see how they performed. The warm ups are done now it's time to get this monster test series underway as these 2 brilliant sides continue to rebuild their teams in the longest and best format of Cricket.
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