England has not picked the right side: Nasser Hussain

England had a day filled with hard work as they failed to take advantage of the critical opportunities they created throughout the day’s play. Jake Ball grabbed Cheteshwar Pujara off the second ball in the first over of the fresh day. But, later the bowling gave the edge to Kohli and Vijay. However, the lunch session saw the tourists swing back to gain momentum with four quick wickets before Kohli along with Jadeja and Jayant Yadav bailed out India.

English commentator and experts Nasser Hussain was highly dissatisfied with England’s performances and couldn’t stop criticising their effort with the ball generally. He believes the bowling attack was wrongly s chosen. The four seamers and two spinners on the Mumbai track have proved to be an error.

“England has 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.

Hussain feels that in the presence of good all-rounders, there was no need for an extra seamer. Instead, they should have strengthened their batting order with an extra batsman.

“England has 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.

“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.”

Root took two wickets in his eight overs with the ball, but dropped Jayant Yadav (30no) at slip when on eight late in the day; one of a number of missed chances by the tourists.

“You can’t afford to give good players chances as they’re going to hurt you,” added Hussain. “Yesterday there was the missed stumping of Vijay when he was on 50-odd, and today the dropped caught-and-bowled chance for Rashid when Kohli was on 60-odd. England came up against a very special player today in Kohli. The locals came in to see the Kohli show, and he absolutely delivered – it was a magnificent innings.

“England stuck at their task, they really did. They didn’t let their heads drop and kept going, but those missed chances hurt you. I think they should have taken the second new ball earlier – yes, it’s going to cost you a few runs but it will also get you a chance. First ball that James Anderson bowled to Jayant with the new ball, he nicked it, but Root put it down. England keeps making these little errors here and there and they keep catching up with them.”