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Tuesday, July 24, 2018

2018 India Tour of England - Can India repeat history in England after 47 years with new-age spin trio?

India had won their first Test series in England way back in 1971 with captain Ajit Wadekar lifting the trophy at the end of a three-match series.

Kapil Dev and Rahul Dravid repeated history in 1986 and 2007 respectively.

11 years after Dravid's triumph, Virat Kohli will be looking repeat history in the five-match Test series starting Aug 01,2018

Back in 1971, Ajit Wadekar had led India to victory on the back of some stunning performances from three of the best spinners in Test history - BS Chandrasekar, S Venkataragahavan and Bishen Bedi.

The deadly trio picked up a total of 37 wickets in that series - Chandrasekar (13), Venkataragahavan (13) and Bedi (11)

The current team also has three world class spinners in Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and rookie Kuldeep Yadav, who has already proved his mettle in the shorter formats in England.

The pitches here might not be best suited for spin bowling which is why experience will come into the play in this series for Ashwin and Jadeja, while Kuldeep will need help from the two veterans if he gets a chance to play.

Ashwin is the senior bowler in this trio in terms of matches played and wickets taken but has till date played just two Tests in England. The Tamil Nadu off-spinner will be eager to make a mark for India this time around on his second tour after 2014.

Ashwin played just two Tests on the last tour managing just three wickets at an average of 33.66 against a career average of 25.34.

Jadeja on the other hand, has proved to be more successful in England than Ashwin having played four Tests on the last trip with 9 wickets.

Jadeja bowls at a slightly quicker pace than Ashwin which is why he has been more successful as the ball doesn't spin much here but if it does at speed then the batsman gets lesser time to react which makes the left-arm off-spinner a big threat in such conditions.

And then there is Kuldeep Yadav, the 23-year-old chinaman, who is coming back into the Test squad after bamboozling the English batsmen in the limited-overs series this month.

Kuldeep has troubled most of England's batsmen with only Jos Buttler and Joe Root managing to read his variations till now



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