IND vs ENG: Rohit Sharma led The Men in Blue and England are currently taking on each other in a five-match test series. The visitors currently have the upper hand as they managed to defeat the Indian team by 28 runs in the first test match at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, and a victory in the first test has allowed the Three Lions to take a 1-0 lead in the five-match test series. This was India’s fourth defeat in 48 test matches at home as the Three Lions executed the biggest comeback on Indian soil by a visiting team.
Players from both teams performed well with the bat and with the ball as well, but some players failed to live up to their expectations, and there are high chances that they might just end up getting dropped from the playing 11 for the next match. This article will provide you with information regarding three players who might get dropped from the playing 11 in favour of other players.
1. Shreyas Iyer
Shreyas Iyer has performed exceptionally well for the Indian team at the number four spot in the white-ball formats, as his ability to build the innings and change gears willingly gives him the automatic preference over other batters, but he has failed to convert his white-ball form into the longest format of the game.
In the first test match against England, the 29-year-old scored 35 decent runs in the first inning. But the second inning is where India needed him the most, and he failed to get going as he managed to score just 13 runs as Jack Leach dismissed him quite easily. Even in the two-match test series against South Africa, he performed poorly with the bat, scoring just 41 runs in the two test matches. Rajat Patidar, who has been in red-hot form in domestic cricket, is waiting to get a chance to prove his worth in Test cricket, and Iyer might get dropped in favour of the RCB batter for the second test match against England.
2. Shubman Gill
Shubman Gill, often regarded as the Prince of Cricket, had a really good start to his test career when he made his debut against the Aussies in Australia in 2020 and played two brilliant knocks of 50+ runs. He scored his first test century of his career against Bangladesh in 2022 at Chattogram and his second and previous century against Australia in Ahmedabad. But all these good knocks came as openers, and now that Gill has shifted to the number 3 position in order to accommodate Yashasvi Jaiswal as an opener in the playing 11, the Punjab batter has struggled to adapt to the number 3 spot.
Since that century against Australia, the 24-year-old’s scores in his last 11 test innings have been 13, 18, 6, 10, 29*, 2, 26, 36, 10, 23, and 0 runs. These scores are really poor when you talk about Shubman Gill, considering the high potential he has. His Test Career Average has gone below 30, and with Virat Kohli likely to return to the team from the third test match onwards and the likes of Cheteshwar Pujara and Sarfaraz Khan constantly knocking on the doors of the selectors with their superb Ranji Trophy performances, Gill would have to play a big innings if he wants to continue being a part of the playing 11.
3. Mark Wood
Mark Wood played the role of the sole pacer for the Three Lions in the first test match against India at Hyderabad. But there are doubts regarding his participation in the second test match. Wood prefers to bowl short-pitched balls and does not prefer bowling with the new ball, so forcing the spinners to open the bowling with the new ball and bowling bouncers all the time on Indian spinning tracks is not a good option.
In the first test match, even though he was quite economical with the ball, he failed to pick up a single wicket in both innings. The English management might just replace Mark Wood with Ollie Robinson or James Anderson, as both of them are genuine swingers of the ball and can trouble the Indian batters in the second test match.
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