India eye turnaround with England keen on doubling series lead cushion

Team India suffered a rare defeat against England in the opening Test of the series and will be hopeful of turning the tide around in the second match at Visakhapatnam. Apart from Virat Kohli’s absence, KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja have also been ruled out with injuries. Sarfaraz Khan, Saurabh Kumar and Washington Sundar have been included in the squad as backups. 

There were major concerns about the Indian bowling unit that struggled to make headway against England’s Ollie Pope in the first Test, while the batting effort in the second innings came under fire too. The hosts will be hopeful of putting up a better performance to level the five-match series.

For England, they will be soaring high on confidence and will be desperate to add onto their advantage as the buzz around Bazball continues to dictate the cricketing circles.

Venue Watch:

A total of two Test matches have been played in this venue out of which both have been won batting first. The average score batting first is 478 while the average score batting second in the first innings is 343. The numbers exhibit a sharper decline in the second innings.

Head to Head

Matches played: 132

India – 31

England - 51

Match Details:

Match – India vs England

Venue: ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Andhra Pradesh

Date: 2nd February, 2024

Time: 9:30 AM

Squads:

India:  Rohit Sharma (C), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (WK), Dhruv Jurel (WK), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohd. Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Avesh Khan, Rajat Patidar, Sarfaraz Khan, Washington Sundar, Sourabh Kumar.

England: Ben Stokes (captain), Rehan Ahmed, James Anderson, Gus Atkinson, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Shoaib Bashir, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ben Foakes, Tom Hartley, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Mark Wood.