Key events
Shoaib Bashir, who was isolating yesterday due to an upset stomach, is fit to play. Ollie Robinson is still at the team hotel, though, so Marcus Trescothick and Paul Collingwood have been officially registered as substitute fielders. Jimmy Anderson might not be the only fortysomething on the field in this game.
India’s XI hasn’t been confirmed, but Jasprit Bumrah will return to zing the ball through at altitude. Either Akash Deep or Kuldeep Yadav are likely to drop out, though that would be hard on Kuldeep after a brilliant series.
India (probable) Jaiswal, Rohit (c), Gill, Patidar, Jadeja, Sarfaraz, Jurel (wk), Ashwin, Kuldeep/Deep, Bumrah, Siraj.
England Crawley, Duckett, Pope, Root, Bairstow, Stokes (c), Foakes (wk), Hartley, Wood, Bashir, Anderson.
Preamble
Hello and welcome to live coverage of the fifth and final Test between India and England in Dharamsala. This is a match with a split identity: a dead rubber; a celebration of Jonny Bairstow, Ravichandran Ashwin and Jimmy Anderson; a source of World Test Championship points; a travelogue with a bit of cricket chucked in; and, given the exceedingly chilly conditions, a warm-up for the county season.
One thing it’s not, alas, is a series decider. India’s mighty comeback in Ranchi gave them an unassailable 3-1 lead, and they are strongish favourites to win this game. England’s young bold soldiers probably don’t deserve to lose 4-1, but then nor did India when they toured England in 2018. No team has ever batted so aggressively against India in India, and a win in Dharamsala would make this … not a moral victory, let’s not go there, but maybe a qualified triumph. As Brendon McCullum said in rather different circumstances at Lord’s last summer, 3-2 has a nice ring to it.
It’s bloody hard to win any Test in India; it’s even harder to win a dead rubber. India have only lost one at home in their entire history, against Australia at Bengaluru in 1997-98. They don’t play as many as you might think, just 16 overall, but there has been a pattern to the recent ones: opponents arrive for the final Test beaten and broken, their bodies on the field and their souls in the departure lounge.
It feels like this England side are a bit different, and they have been bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the build-up. But there’s only one truly reliable window into the soul of a cricket team. It begins at 4am GMT, 9.30am in Dharamsala.
