New Delhi: Even before the battle could begin, multiple absentees threaten to mar the spectacle of the India-England series climax. Yet, as the series is on the line, it wouldn’t stop both teams from going full tilt in the fifth and final Test at The Oval.
England lead 2-1 but without influential skipper Ben Stokes and tearaway pacer Jofra Archer, they could miss the spark in their bowling attack that was unable to complete series victory in the fourth match at Manchester despite having India at their mercy.
Stokes braved pain arising from a muscle tear on his right shoulder to bowl on the last day while Archer all breathed fire that was absorbed by Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar to give India a chance to draw the series in London.
So much effort did Archer, seamer Brydin Carse and left-arm spinner Liam Dawson spent that they all have been rested to manage workload, offering a chance for India to make it all square.
But the visitors too are hamstrung by the absence of injured star keeper-batter Rishabh Pant and pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah, who as per a decision taken prior to the series has already played in three of the five matches in England.
Sparks fly
Making up for the absence of these big names is the altercation between India head coach Gautam Gambhir and ground curator Lee Fortis on the match eve.
Their animated conversation made for spicy coffee-time discussion, extending the aftertaste of Stokes’ handshake drama with Jadeja in Manchester.
England’s stand-in captain Ollie Pope and India skipper Shubman Gill will have the additional responsibility of keeping their boys under control and ensure that they don’t lose focus in trying to get in the minds of their opponents.
With 772 runs, including four hundreds, Gill has earned faith of his young squad, while Pope is yet to fire in the series.
Gill stands only 52 runs away from Sunil Gavaskar’s record of most runs by an Indian in a single series and 11 runs shy off overtaking the former opener’s record of most runs (732) by an Indian skipper in a Test series (1978-79 vs West Indies).
A lot would depend on how the replacements – Dhruv Jurel and Akash Deep and Gus Atkinson and Jamie Overton – perform over the five days starting from Thursday.
India are expected to persist with their two-spin bowling all-rounder combination of Jadeja and Sundar, which gives them added cover in batting, ply that worked so well in the last game.
Teams:
England: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope (c), Joe Root, Harry Brook, Jacob Bethell, Jamie Smith (wk), Chris Woakes, Gus Atkinson, Jamie Overton, Josh Tongue.
India (from): Shubman Gill (captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Kuldeep Yadav, Anshul Kamboj, Arshdeep Singh, N Jagadeesan (WK).
Match starts: 3:30 pm IST.
Telecast on Sony Sports Network
Streaming on Jiohotstar