India vs England: Who will win the 5th Test?

Sport360 staff 14:34 15/12/2016
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  • India head into the final Chennai Test with a 3-0 series lead and Virat Kohli’s men will be confident of making it 4-0.

    For the hosts, it’s an opportunity to show their dominance yet again, having now gone 17 successive Test matches without defeat. Ranked number one in the ICC Test rankings, India will want to show that they still can have that ruthless approach even in a dead rubber.

    For England, it is a chance to salvage some pride. No team since England themselves, in 2012, have won a Test against India in India and it will certainly mean a lot to them if they can pull off an unlikely victory.

    Chennai, the venue for the Test, was hit by a devastating cyclone earlier this week. There were some concerns that the match might not take place because of the conditions, but the situation looks to be under control now.


    DATE, TIME, VENUE INFO

    Date: 16 December – 20 December 2016

    Time: 09:30 local time (IST), 04:00 GMT, 08:00 GST

    Venue: MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai


    WHERE TO WATCH, LIVE STREAMING INFO

    TV: UAE – OSN Sports Cricket HD, India – Star Sports 1, HD 1 [English], Star Sports 3, HD 3 [Hindi], UK – Sky Sports 2 HD

    Online streaming: hotstar.com, Hotstar app [in India only]

    LIVE blog: Sport360 blog


    TEAM NEWS, SQUAD, PREDICTED XI

    INDIA SQUAD: Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Karun Nair, Manish Pandey, Parthiv Patel (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Amit Mishra, Jayant Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shardul Thakur.

    In the 20 Test matches that Virat Kohli has captained India in so far, he has never selected the same line-up in two consecutive matches. This run could finally come to an end if there isn’t an injury before the start of the fifth Test.

    With Ajinkya Rahane, Wriddhiman Saha and Mohammed Shami ruled out of the game, India are likely to go in with the same XI that played in Mumbai.

    If anything, the Indian think tank might be tempted to rest Umesh Yadav who has played all four Tests, in addition to playing the ODI series against New Zealand in October. In case that happens, Shardul Thakur could be given a Test debut.

    PREDICTED INDIA XI: Vijay, Rahul, Pujara, Kohli (c), Nair, Ashwin, Patel (wk), Jadeja, Jayant, Bhuvneshwar, Umesh.

    ENGLAND SQUAD: Alastair Cook (c), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Jake Ball, Gary Ballance, Gareth Batty, Stuart Broad, Jos Buttler (wk), Ben Duckett, Steven Finn, Keaton Jennings, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes, Liam Dawson.

    England’s team selection in this series has come under a lot of criticism as they have failed to find the correct combination for each of the previous four Tests.

    With Gareth Batty being under-bowled in the third Test at Mohali, the visitors decided to play an extra pacer in Mumbai, but that looked like a terrible move as the pitch in Mumbai had close to nothing in it for the quicker bowlers.

    With the Chennai wicket expected to be on the slower side, England need to go back to the strategy of playing three spinners. With James Anderson ruled out of the match, Stuart Broad will return to the XI after missing a couple of Tests due to injury.

    PREDICTED ENGLAND XI: Cook, Jennings, Root, Ali, Bairstow, Stokes, Buttler (wk), Woakes, Dawson, Rashid, Broad.


    FORM

    (Last five matches – with latest match first)

    INDIA:  W W W D W

    ENGLAND: L L L D L


    MATCH PREDICTION

    India to win.

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