England V India 3rd Test At Birmingham Preview: India Hope For Turnaround Amidst Riots

The violent situation in London may have spread out to the other parts of the country in England, including the venue for the third Test match against India, Birmingham, but according to latest reports, the game will go on as scheduled. The match that begins Wednesday, will need a tremendous turnaround from India, if they are looking to hold on to that quickly slipping away number one ranking in the Test match world.

Much has happened on India’s tour of England thus far, and it must be said that not much has gone the Indian way. Injuries and fitness issues have been compounded by their lack of form and England’s resurgence as a force to reckon with and it is hardly a surprise that the side is 0-2 down.

Yuvraj Singh is out, so is Harbhajan Singh but the biggest blow for the Indians comes in the form of Zaheer Khan’s injury – or injuries, if the BCCI is to be believed. The egg was all over the selectors’ face who named him in the ODI squad just two days before he was ruled out of the entire tour. His absence will test the Indian bowling reserves to the hilt, as it had in the first couple of Test matches and ironic as it may sound, the only way out of the trouble seems to be by batting well.

That has been India’s biggest bugbear on the tour; the batting. In the four innings so far, an otherwise strong Indian batting line-up has yet to get to 300 with failures from the openers, Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni hurting in particular. Rahul Dravid has been a face-saver, so much so that his twin-centuries have earned him a recall into the ODI team, but he continues to wage a lone battle.

India will hope that the return of the pair of Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir at the top of the innings will turn their fortunes around.

England were hit by a fitness woe as well, to someone who has otherwise been their most prolific scorer; Jonathon Trott. Trott averages more than 60 in his career, but rather surprising, he had had a poor series by his standards. His replacement will be Ravi Bopara, who, some thought was unlucky to miss out on selection when Eoin Morgan made it to the squad at the start of the series. Incidentally, it was Trott who had replaced the out of form Bopara when he had made his debut two years ago.

The English bowling situation is such that had it not been for the non-recovery of Chris Tremlett’s injury, the management could well have had to scratch their heads to decide between Tremlett and Tim Bresnan. As things stand, Bresnan will now get a nod, an otherwise obvious selection after his 90 and five-wicket haul at Trent Bridge.

The Birmingham pitch has been up for a lot of speculation with varying views emerging from different quarters. A look at the recent past tells me that the games have got over within four days, which suggests that the pitch is a result-oriented one and that the Indians will have no place to escape – they need to play hard and gun for a win alone.

India v England 3rd Test starts August 10 and the live coverage begins from 1000 hours GMT