Last Updated on 4 years by Charbel Coorey

6 Key England Players To Watch Out For vs India | Which England players will be most key in the Test series against India away from home?

After a long interval of time, Test cricket is back in India with England touring India for a four-match Test series. In the last decade, there were two Test series played between these two sides in India, from which England managed to win one series in 2012 and were outplayed by the hosts comprehensively in the second series in 2016.

The upcoming Test series is the first one of this decade between these two historic rivals. India are high on confidence after a magnificent Test series victory down under with a relatively young side whereas England are morally boosted after whitewashing Sri Lanka in their own backyard by 2-0.

So, it’s definitely going to be a cracker of a contest. There are several English players who I think have the calibre to perform well in this tour and in this article, I am going to mention six of them. Here we go.

Dominic Bess

Dom Bess was able to draw the attention of the cricket fraternity with his impressive performances with the ball in the recently concluded Test series against Sri Lanka. He took 12 wickets from two Tests including one fifer at an average of 21.25 and a terrific SR of 42.58, and thus played an important role in England’s series victory.

With two Tests being scheduled in Chennai, where it assists the spinners to a great extent, Bess is expected to perform well and England will largely be dependent on his returns in order to restrict India to a low total.

Moeen Ali

Although his overall batting average in Tests is just around 29, Moeen Ali was one of the most successful English batsmen in England’s last tour of India in 2016. He scored 381 runs from nine innings at a healthy average of 42.33, including 2 centuries and one half century.

Particularly in Chennai, he played a gorgeous knock of 146, which was an example of his excellence against spin bowling on turning tracks. Yes, he was not up to the mark with the ball, but I think he might get the nod ahead of another inexperienced batsman in the middle order because of his abilities to play spinners well and perform well this time too on the Indian soil.

Jack Leach

Jack Leach has toured the subcontinent twice and has done a fairly good job so far. He took 18 wickets from just 3 tests against Sri Lanka in the 2018-19 tour at a very good average of 21.39 and had an excellent SR of 47.56. He complimented Dom Bess very well in the series against the same opposition this year. More importantly, 24 out of his 28 victims in these two tours were RHBs. Considering that India have good fraction of RHBs in their batting lineup, there is a big possibility of Leach being successful on the helpful Indian tracks.

Jofra Archer

Jofra Archer is one of the most promising fast bowlers in the current generation and the experts rate him quite highly. As far as I have seen, he is a very intelligent bowler and has all the weapons in his armory. He can swing the new ball; he hits the deck hard and has a vicious bouncer. One couldn’t get the idea of his pace as he generates that with a relatively short run up.

Therefore, there are several instances of the batsmen getting uncomfortable and being late to react while facing him. He has all the abilities to trouble the best of batsmen and if he somehow manages to extract the variable bounce by pounding the ball hard on the surface, facing him could really be a tough challenge for the Indian batters especially as the game progresses.

Ben Stokes

The English side has a few impactful players and Ben Stokes is the first name in that list. He was decent with the bat in his last tour to India as he scored 345 runs at an average of 38.33, including one hundred in the first Test at Rajkot.

However, as compared to that time, he is a better as well as more experienced player now. The way he dominates the spinners these days by playing sweeps, reverse sweeps and lofted shots using his feet etc. is phenomenal. So, his role in this England team is to play the kind of knocks that can shift the momentum towards his side in a quick time. Added to that, he is quite useful with the ball too and has a knack of picking wickets in crucial phases. So, Ben Stokes is definitely going to be a potential threat for the home side.

Joe Root

With 584 runs from six Tests at an average of 53.09, Joe Root is the most successful English batsman in India among the current England batsmen. He is one of the finest players of spin and looked in great touch in the recent series against Sri Lanka where he smashed 426 runs in just two Tests at a bradmanesque average of 106.50.

England have an inexperienced top order and therefore his role as the most experienced batsman becomes even more important. England will be largely dependent on him in order to post impressive totals on the board and his performance is going to define their fate in this series. Apart from his batting, it will be interesting to see how he leads the side in India as this tour is going to be a big challenge for him as a captain, too.

So, these are my six players to watch out for from the England team. Do any others come to mind? Have your say!

Written by Debashish Sarangi. Follow Debashish on Twitter today.