Former India player Aakash Chopra has shared his views that the Indian team has a relatively inexperienced batting lineup heading into the first Test against England. However, he stated that the same thing was said about the South African batting before they beat Australia in the recent World Test Championship (WTC) final as well.

In a video shared on his YouTube channel ‘Aakash Chopra,’ he said, “The opposing team has kept three fast bowlers, plus Ben Stokes and Shoaib Basheer. Their attack is decent. The one question is that our entire batting lineup has 29 centuries, and Joe Root alone has 36. Is it Root vs India? He could be the root cause of many of our problems because he has scored too many runs,” Chopra said.

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“Our entire Indian team together hasn’t scored as many hundreds as him, but we said the same thing about South Africa, that South Africa’s top seven’s total runs were 9,000, and Steve Smith was alone over 10,000. He was ahead in centuries as well. So it seemed like a one-sided battle, but Australia didn’t win,” he further added.

However, Aakash Chopra also added that teams fielding first have generally enjoyed the upper hand in Leeds as well.

“Teams fielding first have won more matches at Leeds. It’s an interesting one. Generally, you bat first and score runs, and then you win the game, but Leeds is one of those rare grounds where you can win after fielding first. So, bowling first after winning the toss is an option,” he said.

“If the weather and pitch are going to improve, you don’t hesitate to bowl first, although when India won the Test match here, when three centuries were scored, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, and Sanjay Bangar had scored runs, India had batted first and scored nearly 700 runs. You never lose when you score so many runs. Then the spinners had a role,” Aakash Chopra concluded.