After few days of break
India and England are all set to lock horns again in famous Eden Gardens. Much
of the talks during these days was about the controversy around the curator and
Indian captain who is demanding for turning wicket, even though the ruse at
Mumbai was backfired. Despite facing criticism from all the corners for openly
demanding for square turners, he again came up with similar comments on
Tuesday, pr-press conference before the match.
Keeping aside the controversies, third test is anticipated to be fascinating as
the series is evenly poised. Both the teams have almost similar strength and
weaknesses. India holds a slight upper hand in the home ground, having a
tailored pitch. It might be so pre mature to predict much about the behaviour
of the pitch now, but Eden Gardens, “the Mecca of Indian Cricket” is considered
as one of India’s lucky ground.
It seems Indian captain
is conspicuously conscious about the pitch, than the performance of their
fellow players and his form himself. It seems his days of luck are over and
captain will not be ‘cool’ as he used to be. Indian opening is the most
unpredictable part of the batting department, Viru as always unpredictable,
barring his century in first test he still looks to be inconsistent. On the
other side Gautham Gambhir is struggling with the problem of edging early
towards the slips opening the blade; has not been in the best of the touches in
the tournament so far. Sachin at the twilight of his career, past two matches
showed glimpses of good forms by playing some confident shots, but thrown away
his wicket to spinners. He can be lethal at any match, millions of sachin fans
waiting to witness the grandeur of the maestro’s masterpiece. Virat kohli, a
much gifted player is also yet to make his mark in the series so far. Yuvraj
Singh would still be in most people’s World XI for 50- and 20-over cricket,
even this early in his rehabilitation. But even before his cancer he hadn’t
cracked Test cricket - only three Test hundreds at the age of 30 - and he had
become renowned for his vulnerability against the bouncer. India expected to
play with two spinners likely Aswin and Ohja.
Meanwhile, the English
team, which is on a high after crash-landing Indians on their home turf-way in
the second Test Match in Mumbai, would be looking forward to keep strict vigil
in each department of the game focusing on ‘how to play spin in a better way?’
than any of the others. The English players had failed to meet the ball with
the bat in the Motera game which led them to a shameful defeat. Not losing out
on confidence, they came back strongly and pelted heavy blows on India’s
wreaking pace bowling attack but not too much against the turners. Apart from
Captain Cook and KP, to an extent Compton, all other English players are still
struggling against the spin. Jonathan Trott’s vulnerability against spin is
exposed again and Ian bell is also struggling to find form. England bowlers,
especially Swann and Monty Panesar must be happy about the last outing and
Steven Finn expected to replace Stuart Broad will also makes the bowling
department much stronger than the Indians.
Even England start as
favourites in the match, India will enter the match on a confident note
considering their past record here at the Eden Gardens. Till now India has
played 37 test matches at the venue, they have won 10 matches, lost 8 and have
drawn 19 matches. India have beaten the best teams at the venue like Australia,
South Africa and Pakistan. India can draw inspiration from this and look to
pound their opponent and take a 2-1 lead in the four match Test series.
