England vs India: Nasser Hussain reckons India aren't wholly prepared for the Test series

India didn’t have an overwhelming start to the five-match Test series against England after they slumped to a 31-run defeat at Edgbaston in Birmingham. Despite stringing together some impressive performance in all the departments, they eventually couldn’t evade the drubbing. The second Test will be played at the iconic Lord’s Cricket Ground and the visitors will be in for a tough test.

Prior to the first match, Virat Kohli and Co played in a practice match against Essex, but the chinks in their armour, especially in the batting department were exposed in Birmingham. Barring Kohli, the Indian captain, no other batter could counter the venom spewed by the Englishmen. Meanwhile, Nasser Hussain, the former cricketer, believes that India didn’t have enough preparations going into the red-ball fixtures.

It will be a good pitch at the Lord’s

“I think they are a bit undercooked really. I was, in fact, quite surprised that India reduced their four-day warm-up game to a three-day match before the start of the series. To go in against the moving ball against the likes of Anderson, Broad, Stokes, Curran, etc, they looked a bit undercooked.

I am surprised that they left out Pujara, one of their better players. Maybe, come the second game, India will be better where they would’ve had a little bit more cricket,” Hussain was quoted as saying by India Today.

The former English skipper also remarked about the pressure the Indian bowling has to go through for the reason that none of their specialist batters could chip in with overs. He also feels that the leather won’t seam around as much as it did at Edgbaston and talked about the advantages India might get due to the playing conditions at the venue.

“The problem for India is that none of their frontline batsmen bowls so they just go down to four bowlers. In England, that would put a little too much pressure on the three seamers and Ravi Ashwin will have to literally bowl one end all day.

It will be a good pitch at the Lord’s. I don’t think the ball will do as much as it did at Edgbaston so that will help the Indian batsmen a little bit,” the cricketer turned commentator added.

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