(Cricket News) The 5th match of the India vs England test series is set to begin in one of the most beautiful venues of the world, Dharamsala. The England team would want to end their tour to India on a high, with a win to their names in the final test.
England started the tour on a high in Hyderabad, kudos to an exceptional batting display from their vice-captain Ollie Pope. However, things went totally downhill from their on for the visitors as they lost the next three games.
The English side came to India with an inexperienced spin attack, but the bowlers have showed a lot of promise. They even lost their most experienced spinner Jack Leach due to an injury post the first game, but the likes of Tom Hartley, Rehan Ahmad and Shoaib Bashir has well and truly displayed their skills under alien conditions.
Bazball seemed to be effective in the first game and they also played some good cricket in the rest three games of the series, however inconsistency both with the bat and the ball caused them the series. Zak Crawley along side Ben Duckett has been solid at the start, but the English middle order failed to live up to the expectations. They have managed to play some good cricket, but only in patches.
The visitors were ahead in the 4th test at Ranchi as well, posting a solid 353 in the first innings on a difficult batting track. They even reduced the Indian side to 120/5, but Dhruv Jurel and Kuldeep Yadav came to India’s rescue, which was followed by some brilliant bowling by the spinners to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat for the hosts.
Moving into Dharamsala, Stokes and co. can be threatening. Having already lost the series, they could well be on top of their ‘Bazball’ approach, which was missing in the previous few games. Also the conditions their would probably be the best suitable for the English side. How will England approach this game would be an interesting thing to watch out for, given that the WTC points are also stake.
ALSO READ : BCCI aims to improve pace resources with fast bowling contracts
