The Indian Cricket Team are all set to commence their busy Test-Season, consisting 10 encounters, which will conclude with the 2024 Border Gavaskar Trophy against Australia.
Rohit Sharma and his men will be taking on Najmul Hossain Shanto-led Bangladesh in a two-match Test Series, with the first game set to be played in Chennai’s M.A Chidambaram Cricket Stadium.
The Tigers are in good nick, having whitewashed Pakistan by a margin of 2-0 last month. They will be looking to carry forward their winning momentum and defeat the Men in Blue in India.
Defeating the Indians at home will not be an easy task at all by any means but the current Bangladeshi squad has the momentum and form available with them which they can utilise to defeat the Rohit Sharma-led team.
The first test match of the series will be played between 19-23 September in Chennai while the second and final match will be played at Kanpur’s GreenPark Stadium from the 27th of September onwards.
Ahead of the first test match, the Men in Blue’s main concerning points regarding their starting 11 has been their bowling-combination.
Keeping the Border Gavaskar Trophy in mind, the Chennai Test match will be played on a red-soil surface, which has a tendency of favouring the fast bowlers. This change would mean that the Blue Army would likely opt for a combination of three seamers and two primary spinners.
This means that Akash Deep, who had a really good debut series against England earlier this year, might play the role of the third fast bowler. He is in good form as well as he recently picked a nine wicket haul for India A against India B in Duleep Trophy, with his figures reading 9-116.
The Indians are likely to adopt their 2019 tactics, when they had used similar pitch tactics versus Bangladesh in their previous home series against them.
Spin bowlers managed to dismiss just five batters in that series and left arm spinner Jadeja had bowled just 19 overs in India’s previous home test series versus the Tigers.
But, according to a PTI news report, skipper Rohit Sharma and Men in Blue’s head coach Gautam Gambhir, have decided to go ahead with a combination of two seamers and three spinners.
This means that the trio of Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin and Kuldeep Yadav will be the main spin bowlers while Siraj and Bumrah will be the main seamers..
Axar Patel, who played a crucial role in India’s 2024 T20 World Cup triumph and had a really good Duleep Trophy performance as well, will be forced to sit in the dugout.
Another expected change will be Rishabh Pant returning to the playing 11 at the expense of Dhruv Jurel.
Dhruv had a really good start to his Test Career as he delivered a match-winning performance versus England earlier this year and he even won the player of the match award in the Ranchi test match.
But, Pant has been a crucial player for the Men in Blue over the years in the longest format of the game and his experience will be valued by the team management.
The Southpaw last played a test match for India in December of 2022, before getting side lined from the sport due to an accident.
In terms of the batting department, things are anticipated to remain the same. Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma will be the main opening batters followed by Shubman Gill at number three and Kohli at four.
KL Rahul and Sarfaraz Khan will be fighting it out against each other for the number five spot but the former will be given the preference over the latter, purely on the basis of experience Rahul has with him.
India’s playing 11 for the first test match versus Bangladesh (Predicted)
Rohit Sharma (Captain), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Sarfaraz Khan / KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (WK), Ravi Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammad Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah.
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