After rain played spoilsport in the first Test between India and England at Trent Bridge, both teams will be looking to work on the weaknesses that came to the fore and work on them in the second Test at the Lord’s.

Captain Virat Kohli will have to think of playing his best spinner Ravichandran Ashwin while expecting a far better batting show from its formidable batting line-up. Even though India were in a better position to win the opening Test of the five-match Test series, the first innings score of 278 was still below par as none among Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane scored runs.

It should be noted that none of the three have scored in bulk in the past two years. However, Rahane did get a hundred in Melbourne. But Pujara and Kohli have failed to convert their double-figure runs into a three-figure mark.

With Shardul Thakur down with a hamstring injury, it can be safely assumed that Ashwin will be back in the playing XI. The spinner is on the verge of surpassing Harbhajan Singh’s (417 wickets) tally.

With Thakur nearly ruled out, Kohli might have to revisit his 4-1 bowling combination which can’t be cast in stone considering the lean nature of his team’s lower-order batting.

“Most likely it will be a template going ahead [4-1 combination], but we’ve always been adaptable as well, to the conditions and pace of the wicket,” Kohli had said after the first Test.

London has been recording a maximum temperature of 24 degrees with an average temperature around 14 degrees.

It would be interesting to see if England retain a green top as they did in 2018 when Indian batting collapsed twice in two days and all-rounder Chris Woakes walked away with the honours.

However, if the pitch is on the drier side, both Ashwin and Jadeja can trouble the English line-up with their skills.

As for England, other than captain Joe Root, the wet behind the ears English batting line-up collapsed rather easily.

There is every possibility that Rory Burns could be replaced by Haseeb Hameed, who scored a hundred opening the innings for the Combined Counties against Indians in the tour game last month.

England are likely to miss their senior pacer Stuart Broad as he had injured his right calf muscle during a training session which possibly rules him out of the game.

England added Lancashire seam bowler Saqib Mahmood in the squad as cover with ECB informing that spinner Dom Bess will be leaving the squad and returning to Yorkshire.

Squads

India: Virat Kohli (Captain), Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Mayank Agarwal, Ajinkya Rahane (vice-captain), Hanuma Vihari, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), R. Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma, Mohd. Shami, Md. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, KL Rahul, Wriddhiman Saha (wicket-keeper), Abhimanyu Easwaran, Prithvi Shaw, Suryakumar Yadav.

England: Joe Root (capt), James Anderson, Jonny Bairstow, Moeen Ali, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Sam Curran, Haseeb Hameed, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Dom Sibley, Mark Wood, Saqib Mahmood.

Match Starts at 3:30 pm.