Former England captain Nasser Hussain believes England have picked the wrong team against India for the fourth Test at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. Hussain feels England are a batsman short as India look to build on their 51-run lead on the fourth day. Hussain also reckons the decision to pick four seamers and two spinners on the Wankhede track could eventually prove to be costly. Hussain said the above after England had scored 400 in the first innings, but let the momentum slip, allowing India to reach 459 for 7 at stumps on Day Three. Virat Kohli is unbeaten on 147, while Murali Vijay too had scored an excellent 134 to put India in a good position. A win for India (or even a draw) in this Test will see them sealing the five-match series with one game to go. If that happens, it will be India’s first series win over England in four attempts.
“England have not picked the right side here,” he said. “There is no way you could have looked at this pitch before the game and said it was a four-seamer pitch. They’re making up for the mistakes they made in previous games by not playing the extra seamer, but Chris Woakes has bowled only eight overs out of 142 so far here. England have two or three exceptional all-rounders in their team, but they’re not making use of them — they keep playing an extra bowler which they don’t need and it means those all-rounders are then wasted,” Hussain added, according to skysports.com.
“What are England going to need tomorrow when they face a 100-odd run deficit? Are they going to need a fourth seamer? Or are they going to need some runs from an extra batsman? I’d say the extra batsman. I don’t know where it has come in that we suddenly need six bowlers plus Joe Root on a spinning pitch,” Hussain further said.
After the first Test at Rajkot had ended in a draw, India won the second Test at Visakhapatnam by 246 runs and followed it up with an 8-wicket win in the third Test at Mohali to go 2-0 up in the series.
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.