Former India player turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has warned Team India against preparing a square turner for the second Test against England, claiming that the visiting batters are likely to fare better than the Indian team in such conditions. England beat India by 28 runs in the opening game of the five-match series in Hyderabad on Sunday, January 28. The second match will take place in Visakhapatnam from Friday, February 2.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Chopra said: “The opposing team will take a lot of confidence from here. If we play on a bad pitch, their batting is far better equipped. They will bat better than us on a bad pitch because they have the bravery to play unconventional shots, which we don’t have.”
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He again said, “We have only two batters who play the sweep well, one is Rohit (Sharma) and the other is (KL) Rahul. Your No. 3 and No. 5 don’t have confidence at all. You are struggling. If we make a dust bowl, they will get stuck even more. Gill and Iyer’s confidence is slightly shaken at the moment.”
Meanwhile, Aakash Chopra also added that the England bowlers will do well. He shared that Tom Hartley ran through the Indian batting attack on the fourth day in Hyderabad. Aakash Chopra also feels Team India’s bowling is another concern heading into the second Test as well.
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“If we talk about the bowling, when England started playing reverse and switch sweeps, we didn’t have an answer. It seems like we have gotten used to playing on rank turners. When we have to work a little hard, sometimes we are not imaginative enough. At times, difficulties or bad times force you to think, make your imagination slightly fertile. It doesn’t happen if things happen easily. Then you get used to it. If you see Bumrah, he had to think more as it wasn’t a pitch for him. So he had to find ways to stay relevant,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
