‘It looks a bit dry but we’ve played in these conditions a fair bit now,” deadpanned Rohit Sharma after he lost the toss. “We understand what we’ve got to do. We’ve got the skills, we’ve got the guys who can do the job for us. We’ve played in these conditions before so we know exactly what to expect and what we need to do.”
He was not kidding. Virat Kohli’s absence will possibly be felt in time but with England choosing to bat in Hyderabad India took to the field with exactly the guys who could do the job for them. Their three spinners included, of all those who have taken at least 10 Test wickets in the past two years, the players with the best and second-best bowling averages and numbers two, three and four when ranked on economy. Srikar Bharat was surely the right choice as wicketkeeper on a pitch that guaranteed a rigorous test of technique and he produced an impeccable performance to prove it. India also had two of the top 20 seamers ranked by wickets taken over the last two years, one of them, the magnificent Jasprit Bumrah, having played only five times in that period.
