The third test match between England and India gets under way at Headingley, Leeds on Wednesday and India lead the series 1-0 with three to play.
India won the Lords test by 151 runs to take the lead in this 5 match series.
India made scores of 368 (Rahul 129) and 198/8 declared (Rahane 61) whilst England posted 391 (Root 180 not out) and 120 all out. Siral claimed 4 wickets in both innings to be India's top performing bowler and with Joe Root once again lacking support, England look up against it. Rahul, our top first innings bat pick at 4/1, was named Man of the Match and this was how they lined up at Lords.
England - Rory Burns, Dominic Sibley, Haseeb Hameed, Joe Root (c), Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler (wk), Moeen Ali, Sam Curran, Ollie Robinson, Mark Wood, James Anderson
India - Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli (c), Ajinkya Rahane, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
The first test was staged at Nottingham and was drawn as rain washed out Day 5 when all 3 outcomes were possible.
As far as the team news is concerned Mark Wood has been ruled out of the third test with injury, Sibley and Crawley have been dropped from the England squad with Saqib Mahmood and Dawad Malan called up.
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The Venue Headingley, Leeds
Over the course of the last decade England have played 8 test matches at Leeds, winning 4, drawing 1 and losing 3.
The most recent test match at this venue came against Australia in August 2019 and England won a thrilling contest by 1 wicket. Australia were bowled out for 179, England fared even worse, all out for 67. Australia made 246 in their second innings and had the game at their mercy only for Ben Stokes to play one of the great innings, unbeaten on 135 in England's total of 362/9.
You can check the weather forecast here
The Betting - 3rd Test
England are currently trading at around 16/10 to win the game with the draw a 3/1 chance and India can be backed at around 27/20
As far as the top 1st innings bat markets are concerned Joe Root is 16/10 favourite for England and Virat Kohli is 5/2 for India
Jimmy Anderson (2/1) is the favourite to be top England wicket taker in the first innings whilst Jasprit Bumrah is 12/5 favourite to do likewise for India
Note all prices are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change
The Verdict
Whilst Joe Root has carried England's batting the hosts bowling is minus Mark Wood for this match and I can see scope for India scoring plenty of runs if conditions stay fine.
To score a 50 is the market I like here and Rahul and Rahane are my picks.
Bets: 1st Innings to score 50, KL Rahul ? (yes) at 2/1
1st Innings to score 50, Ajinkya Rahanel ? (yes) at 23/10
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Note all prices are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change
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