The great and the powerful of Indian cricket assembled at the Park Hyatt hotel in Hyderabad on Tuesday evening for a glitzy dinner in which four years’ worth of annual awards were doled out to Ravichandran Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Deepti Sharma and others, the shifting of an almighty backlog caused by the pandemic.
In a parallel universe there would have been even more reason to celebrate on the night but one piece of silverware was missing. The World Cup that eluded Rohit Sharma’s men last November still cuts deep in India, making the five‑Test series against England that starts on Thursday a chance to restore some national pride.
Perhaps this is overstating what victory against Ben Stokes and his freewheeling side would mean. After all, on one level it would simply be the extension of an already remarkable record on Indian soil that stretches back 11 years and features 14 successive series wins – the longest home sequence by a Test side in history. But after an unsatisfying 1-1 draw in South Africa (two-match Test series are the pits) and a recent 3-0 clean sweep of Afghanistan in some low-key Twenty20s, this is the biggest stage since the agony of Ahmedabad; an opportunity to reassert India’s powerhouse status, retain the Anthony de Mello Trophy, and put Bazball in its place.
For England, this eight-week tour not only starts an eyewatering year of 17 Tests but completes a winter in which their men stunk out the World Cup and lost both of their white‑ball series in the Caribbean. Defeat here would make it one of discontent; a bleak old time after a promising first 18 months for the team director, Rob Key.
Not that Stokes and his troops will view it this way, of course, both for the fact that Key separated leadership of the formats and that their side of the ledger is pretty healthy. The drawn home Ashes series last summer might have been a missed opportunity but since Stokes and Brendon McCullum came together in 2022 they have won 13 and lost four of their 18 matches – a ratio that trumps even Australia, the world Test champions.
They are, however, seriously up against it. While Virat Kohli’s absence from the first two Tests for personal reasons is the most significant loss to hit either side in the buildup – a blow for the series, also – Harry Brook leaving the tour to attend to a similarly unspecified family matter is not insignificant. And that’s before we come to the visa issue that has left poor Shoaib Bashir having to fly home to rectify the hold-up – a situation that has left England understandably fuming.
No Brook – star of the 3-0 clean sweep in Pakistan last winter – at least spares one headache. One interpretation is that this has allowed Ben Foakes to return to the side, although it may be more accurate to say it means Jonny Bairstow keeps his spot as a batter. Foakes, master gloveman on the subcontinent, was always likely to play.
“[Foakes] is a special talent and having someone like that can maybe take a 2%, 3% chance that could be massive in the series,” Stokes said, stopping short of expressing any regret over Bairstow’s disappointing Ashes behind the stumps.
While the absence of Brook can be accommodated by a side that bats with a commitment to aggression from one to six and welcomes back Ollie Pope after his shoulder injury last summer, the inability of Stokes to play as an all-rounder after knee surgery does upset the balance of the side. This makes Joe Root the Swiss Army knife in their camping kit, his off-breaks likely to be used heavily in the coming weeks.
Stokes declared himself fit to play two days out from the first Test but it is clearly still touch and go, having had stitches put into his meniscus and a bone spur removed during a procedure he described as a “last resort”. The England captain is visibly slimmer than last year, down about 10kg in weight, but this is in part to aid his rehabilitation. Bowling, he said, is unlikely to resume before the summer. “Hopefully it is something that will give me a little bit longer [playing],” Stokes said. “I’m 32 now and sport isn’t here forever. I want to play for England as long as I possibly can. The older you get, the harder you work.”
Beyond how his plunderbats fare against Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel, the ability of Stokes to conjure up 20 wickets of his own will be vital. As many have pointed out, much will depend not just on the captain’s resourcefulness but on the surfaces India prepare. Too flat, and England’s batters will be in clover; too extreme, and an otherwise callow-looking attack becomes more threatening.
Because, on the face of it, this is a complete mismatch as regards spinners; the four in India’s squad have a combined 849 Test wickets to the 131 claimed by England’s frontline quartet. Jack Leach has 124 of these but is only just returning from a lower back stress fracture. Either Tom Hartley or Rehan Ahmed will support – possibly both if England feel the pitch will rag – while the seamers must offer more than just control.
“We have picked the spinners who we feel are going to give us the best opportunity to win out here regardless of experience,” said Stokes, pushing back at the bare facts of it all. “Sometimes experience can be a little overrated and over-thought.”
This is the kind of homespun optimism that has underpinned the Stokes-McCullum era. Whether it is enough to see England pilfer the silverware is a different question.
