This summer sees the Indian cricket team on a mammoth tour of England, playing as many as 5 Test matches. Amazingly, one has to go back to 1959 for the last time India played 5 Tests in a single tour of England. England incidentally thumped India 5-0 in that series, which is understandable given that Indian cricket was still in its infancy then, while England were the superpowers of the game. What is inexplicable though is the 4-0 demolition of the Indian team the last time they toured England, only 3 years ago.
Past tours of the Indian Cricket Team
The Indian tour of England of the year 2011 was seminal for both teams, but for opposite reasons. India went into that tour as the number one ranked Test side in the 
world, as well as the reigning champions of the ODI World Cup, held only a few months earlier in India. The Indian team of 2011 was the most hyped cricket team ever to visit the shores of England, at par with Steve Waugh’s invincible Aussies. Indian cricket was pretty much on top of the world. What nobody bargained for however, was the extraordinarily poor performance by the Indian team that followed. Apart from “The Wall”, Rahul Dravid, the rest of the side caved in without putting up even the semblance of a fight. India’s performance was so pitiable that even the English fans felt sorry for them. Well, some of them!
That series changed a lot of things in world cricket. The Indian cricket team lost its exalted status, and captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who could seemingly walk on water till then, looked suddenly very human, weak and very fallible. Dhoni is still the captain of the Indian team, but the aura that he exuded, is all gone. England went from strength to strength since then, and the Golden Age of English cricket seemed well and truly on its way, till the recent Ashes series held in Australia, where everything simply came crashing down. England were beaten 5-0, completely annihilated by the marauding Aussies, who were cheered on by the pantomime villain, the legendary Shane Warne, and celebrated by the entire Australian public. Talk of adding insult to injury. The cricketing world was turned upside down, and how!
This was followed by plenty of recrimination and hand-wringing back home in England, with the media demanding accountability at the highest level. Inevitably, whole scale changes were enforced, with the most successful England manager of all time, Andy Flower given the sack, Kevin Pietersen, perhaps the biggest match winner England has had since Ian Botham, given a permanent goodbye, Jonathan Trott out because of psychological issues and Graeme Swann, the bedrock of the England bowling attack finally hanging up his boots. So this Indian tour of England sees both the home team and the visitors in a state of flux, confused about the future and uncertain about doing well. Indeed, totally lacking in confidence.
Both Alistair Cook and M.S.Dhoni are perhaps in the weakest phases of their cricketing careers, with lot of questions being asked about them, and for the first time, questions are being asked about their ability as Test cricketers. This series is critical for both Dhoni and Cook, and a loss here might not only mean the loss of captaincy, but could also result in either being dropped from playing Test cricket for their respective teams.
This series will also be a massive test for India’s best batsmen, Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara. While the classy duo have done well in Test matches in Indian conditions, it still remains to be seen whether they can be equally good on livelier pitches, with a plenty of movement, where the ball is seaming around and at pace, against the experienced and capable James Anderson and Stuart Broad.
Anderson and Broad revel in English conditions and they have been further boosted by the discovery (and rediscovery) of two quality quick bowlers by England in Chris Jordan and the new Liam Plunkett. Plunkett in particular has been a major revelation in the current series against Sri Lanka, bowling with genuine pace, the sort of which he was never associated with until very recently.
India’s pace bowlers look second best in comparison, with none of the six quick bowlers in the Indian touring party of 18, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Ishwar Pandey, Pankaj Singh or Varun Aaron having the pace or talent of the English fast bowlers. India have a much better spin attack though, with Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja far more effective than England’s chosen spinner, Moeen Ali, who is yet to do anything of note as a bowler.
Apart from Pujara and Kohli, there isn’t much steel in Indian batting, with none of the others – Gautam Gambhir, Vijay, Shikar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane or Rohit Sharma – in any sort of form to inspire any confidence. The English batting department is actually in a worse state with the entire much vaunted England line-up being grievously hurt and perhaps psychologically damaged by the rampaging Mitchell Johnson. With captain Cook really struggling, Bell no longer the player he was last summer in England, Matt Prior a walking wicket, Joe Root no longer seen as a promising player – and with Pietersen and Trott no longer a part of the team, the English batting looks particularly frail. Whether the three new additions to the English batting line-up, Gary Ballance, Sam Robson and all-rounder Moeen Ali are any good, still remains to be seen.
The India-England duel this summer is a battle between two sides that have a plenty to prove. India and England are no longer the top sides in world cricket – that honor belongs to Australia and South Africa. The team that emerges on top by the end of this series will have gained a bit of redemption in the eyes of their fans, but the team that loses will be mercilessly attacked by the media. Careers will be made and great careers will be destroyed. Just for this reason, the Indian tour of England promises to be highly exciting.
