Unfinished business: Bumrah's India ready to face England 2.0

Never before has Jasprit Bumrah navigated the choppy waters of leadership but he will certainly like to showcase his captaincy acumen while leading a slightly underprepared India against a vastly improved England in the rescheduled fifth Test, starting on Friday.

India were leading the five-match series 2-1 when multiple Covid-19 cases in their camp led to the postponement of the final game, which was a part of the World Test Championship.

Nine months have passed since and a lot of water has flown through the Thames with the then captain Virat Kohli relinquishing Test captaincy. His successor Rohit Sharma is missing this game after testing positive for Covid-19.

Worse, Rohit's designated deputy KL Rahul is also out after having undergone a surgery for sports hernia.

In this backdrop of the musical chairs for Indian captaincy, the gauntlet has been thrown to Bumrah, arguably one of the finest fast bowlers in the history of Indian cricket and now set to be the 36th man to lead the national Test team.

He has been widely acknowledged as the undisputed leader of the fast bowling group but come Friday, the challenge against Ben Stokes' side will be very different when he walks out for the toss at the Edgbaston.

Fast bowlers in the Indian context have never been considered worthy of leadership contention and Kapil Dev, the world class all-rounder, was more of a fast-medium bowler in his prime and later, a medium-fast one as time progressed.

Javagal Srinath and Zaheer Khan, two fine exponents of fast bowling, were never considered for even vice-captaincy during their heyday. And hence,it took 35 years for India to have another pacer captain.

But leadership is an instinctive thing - some are blessed with that sixth sense and intuition, some are born gamblers and some become better as they grow on the job.

While this arrangement is a stop-gap one, the Indian cricket establishment will get an idea about what can be expected of Bumrah when the time comes for the next passing of the baton.

New England, new template

The 3-0 demolition of New Zealand with three tricky chases completed in style has shown that England, under new coach Brendon McCullum, have deconstructed their style-sheet as far as Test matches are concerned.

Their batters are plundering the opposition attack but there are also a lesser number of five-wicket hauls from the pacers if one goes by the statistics of the New Zealand series. It was spinner Jack Leach who got two five-wicket hauls but neither James Anderson nor Stuart Broad were able to match him.

The pitches have become a tad flatter, which is helping the batters and so, Bumrah, along with Mohammad Shami and Mohammed Siraj will have an onerous task of tackling a batting line-up bubbling with confidence.

Joe Root, after relinquishing captaincy, has continued his sublime form and Jonny Bairstow, with the confidence from the IPL, has scored nearly 400 runs at a strike-rate of 120 plus, which is unheard of in Test matches.

"England have done well as they won a couple of Test matches from positions where they could have potentially lost the games," said Indian coach Rahul Dravid on Wednesday.

"We will like to focus on what our strengths are rather than thinking about the opposition's strength," the head coach said, reminding everyone that India are still third in the World Test Championship table (58.33 percentage points) behind Australia (75 percentage points) and South Africa (71.43% pts).

Team combination a worry for India

India will have to bat well and do so in the absence of the regular opening pair of Rohit and Rahul, who were fantastic during the four Tests played last year.

Coach Rahul Dravid expects a match-winning performance if not a hundred from Virat Kohli, who looked good in the practice game but the Test match will be a different beast altogether.

The practice game against Leicestershire was more of an extended net session and since the days of MS Dhoni, Indian teams have hardly played official first-class games as precursors to Test matches.

James Anderson might be a month short of his 40th birthday but those magical wrists can still make the ball dart around and it will be a different experience for players like Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer.

Cheteshwar Pujara has scored a bagful of county runs but that psychological disadvantage of facing the very first ball of an innings, if he is asked to open, could clutter his mind.

Hanuma Vihari is a solid player but would need support from the other end, considering he has a defensive game.

It remains to be seen who will be India's bowling all-rounder. Will it be Ravichandran Ashwin, who isn't an automatic choice in overseas conditions or Shardul Thakur, who hasn't done his chances any harm with some big-hearted efforts in SENA countries.

Edgbaston hasn't exactly been a happy hunting ground for India as they've never won a Test match there but as it often happens with new beginnings, a new captain will always try to buck the trend.

The teams:

India squad: Jasprit Bumrah (captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (wk, vice-captain), Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammad Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Shardul Thakur, Ravichandran Ashwin, Prasidh Krishna, Kona Srikar Bharat (wk), Mayank Agarwal, Umesh Yadav

England XI (already announced): Alex Lees, Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes (captain), Sam Billings (wicketkeeper), Matthew Potts, Stuart Broad, Jack Leach, James Anderson.

The match starts at 3 pm IST.