Test match betting: India squad analysis

Ojha is key to India's chances

India's fall from the top of the Test rankings has been spectacular. As they prepare to face England, Andrew Hughes analyses their strengths and weaknesses.

Current Form India's Test decline in recent months has been dramatic. A couple of years ago they had the best Test batting order in the world, were next to invincible at home and had a crop of young seam bowlers coming through. But now three-quarters of that stellar middle order has gone, their seam bowlers have fallen away and crushing defeats in England and Australia have dropped them to fifth in the Test rankings. Who's in and who's out? Having failed to replace Sourav Ganguly, the retirements of Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman created two more batting vacancies. Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and Suresh Raina are the men in possession, but of the three, only Kohli is secure. Cancer survivor Yuvraj Singh is back in contention and there are plenty of young IPL stars waiting to get a chance, notably Ajinkya Rahane and Manoj Tiwary. At home, India invariably go with two spinners and Harbhajan's Twenty20 resurgence isn't enough to return him to the Test team ahead of Ravichandran Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha. When he's fit, Zaheer Khan still bears the brunt of the seam bowling burden, supported by Umesh Yadav or the young quick Varun Aaron. Strengths India's strength remains their batting. On Indian pitches, where the ball doesn't get above knee height and rarely deviates from the straight and narrow, Indian batsmen are hard to beat. Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Sachin Tendulkar have all looked vulnerable in the last eighteen months, but on their own patch they remain a formidable trio. Even overseas failures like Raina and Yuvraj are a different proposition at home. The top run scorer in this series will be an Indian. Weaknesses With the frequently injured Zaheer their only world class seamer, India are almost back t the pre-Kapil Dev era, when the job o the fast bowler was t wear the ball out for the spinners. Their lack o depth i the fast bowling department leaves them with little choice. Yadav, Aaron and Ashok Dinda are inexperienced, whilst the likes o Ishant Sharma, Sreesanth and R Singh have failed too often t be trusted.

I recent years not every Indian pitch has conformed t the subcontinental stereoptype; there has even been the occasional seam friendly track. But the Indians have been fairly open about their intentions this time. England should expect t face nothing but dry turners o which Ashwin and Ojha, supported b Raina, Kohli, Sehwag and possibly Yuvraj, d the bulk o the bowling.

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