England vs India 2025 second Test preview: Five things India must do to win at Edgbaston

The first Test at Headingley saw England draw first blood in the five-Test series against India in a thrilling opening salvo.

From the 1,673 runs aggregated (the highest for any Test match between the two sides) to England’s second-highest ever successful run chase of 371, there were records and statistics aplenty.

For the visitors, however, Headingley’s blockbuster proved to be a steep learning curve for a new-look side seeking to embrace a brave new world following the retirements of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Ravichandran Ashwin.

Ahead of the second Test at Edgbaston, Mohan Harihar highlights five things India must do to level the series.

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India’s fielders cannot let game slip through their fingers

The old adage of ‘catches win matches’ may be one of cricket’s overcooked clichés, but if ever there was a time to heed its warning, it is now.

Across the Test, India’s eight dropped catches – predominantly in the slip and gully regions – cost them 250 runs.

Yashasvi Jaiswal – who delighted in his first outing in England with the bat, striking a serene century on day one – failed to capture that same spark in the field dropping four catches himself.

The performance was poles apart from their usual high standards as a team, one which boasts the highest catch efficiency in the slip and gully regions among Test nations since 2023 (80.6%). 

India’s fledgling cordon heralds new beginnings in the absence of familiar faces (and hands). And as is often the case with the dawn of a new era, growing pains are inevitable. 

It will take time for coach Gautam Gambhir to allocate and settle on specific roles for the new crop of talent. 

For the players themselves, they will need to adjust to their new responsibilities and build ‘catching chemistry’ with one another in the cordon.

That said, in a game of fine margins – made finer for the bowlers on flat pitches – India will have to swiftly move up this learning curve.

Backing your best XI for the conditions

India’s team composition at Headingley was a point of contention from the moment the coin came down at the toss.

The selection of Shardul Thakur as an insurance batting pick at number 8 proved a swing and a miss, and his meagre match contribution of 16 overs (out of a total of 182.4 overs) vindicated the sentiments of his sceptics. 

Passing judgement on Thakur’s overall impact at Headingley, particularly with the ball, is difficult given his overall paltry workload. 

For example, his back-to-back wickets of Ben Duckett and Harry Brook on the final day provided a glimpse as to why Thakur is regarded as India’s ‘golden arm’. 

Therefore, should captain Shubman Gill have entrusted him with more responsibility once he was confirmed in the playing XI? 

Leading into the game the debate was which way India would go on what was already expected to be a flat batting surface. 

An extra seam-bowling all-rounder (Thakur or Nitish Kumar Reddy) seemed logical given the historical context of playing in England. 

Conversely, a second spinner in the form of Kuldeep Yadav or Washington Sundar may have been the optimal pick given the current landscape of Test cricket in England since June 2022.

As the Test unfolded, there was growing support for wrist spinner, Yadav, and the talents he could have offered Gill. 

His command of the ball as a classical wrist spinner and ability to beat both edges of the bat – that too at fluctuating air speeds and ball paths – could have dragged India over the line on the final day where the pitch showed some signs of turn and uneven bounce. 

Ravindra Jadeja, the visitors’ preferred spinner on tours to SENA, looked a one-trick pony in the fourth innings. 

Furthermore, his returns in his last four Tests – including three in Australia – hint at an overall dip in penetration and prowess away from home (five wickets from 110 overs at an average of 78.00).

Gambhir and Gill face a selection conundrum. Regardless of whether they stick or twist, they must back who they pick.

Time for Gill to stamp his authority on the field

Captaincy is a burden that weighs heavy on the shoulders of even the most seasoned campaigner. 

For Gill, who follows in the footsteps of Kohli and Sharma, the burden weighs just that little bit heavier. 

Consequently, one could excuse him for the lack of overt aggression or tactical shrewdness – hallmarks of Gill’s most recent predecessors – in his first outing.

Speaking on Gill’s Test-captaincy debut, ex-England captain Nasser Hussain stated: “I thought I saw someone just finding his way, honestly.

“I thought he followed the ball a lot. I thought he was reactive as opposed to proactive.”

Hopefully for India’s young leader, Headingley serves as the catalyst for him to marshal his troops to the beat of his own drum, and less by committee, as the series progresses.

There is little doubt he possesses the sparkle for leadership; this is old news for fans of The Gujarat Titans in the Indian Premier League.

But over the course of five days, five Tests and on pitches cut from the same cloth as Headingley, Gill must become more assured of himself and his plans on the field before the fact. 

Additionally, a little peek at how his opposite number, Ben Stokes, manipulates and manufactures fielding positions to his advantage on unresponsive surfaces would not go amiss.  

Get in and go big

During the first Test, India’s batting young guns racked up five individual centuries.

Jasiwal (101), Rishabh Pant (134 and 118), KL Rahul (137) and Gill (147) all stroked their way to entertaining and aesthetically pleasing innings which, on any other surface, would be almost guaranteed to be match-winning.

Instead, India found themselves part of an unwanted record – the first team to lose a Test match after scoring five individual hundreds.

It was a reminder to India’s next generation that once you get in, go big. 

Home surfaces in the Bazball era are a batter’s happy place. As a result, scores of 100-140 are comparable to a hard-earned 40-80 on any other pitch.

At Headingley, India had multiple chances with the blade, in both innings, to bat the hosts out of sight. 

Through a combination of persistent bowling from England and excitable batting from India, Gill’s men rarely left England’s sights. 

It is worth noting the same was true of England who also fell into a similar trap. 

In their first innings Ollie Pope and Harry Brook lost their wickets on 106 and 99, respectively, to rash strokes at inopportune times to keep India in the hunt.

For India, this mindset becomes imperative given the limited abilities of their lower-order batters; the proof was in the pudding with collapses of 7-41 and 6-31. 

Much, therefore, is left to India’s top seven – the bonafide batters in this team – to score the necessary runs for their bowlers to work with.

Runs from numbers eight to 11 are a welcome bonus.

Bowling as a unit

Arguably the biggest talking point throughout the Headingley Test was Jasprit Bumrah. 

His undeniable resourcefulness means the number one Test bowler holds all the aces for India, an exceedingly problematic quandary the team faces.

Claiming 5-83 in the first innings at Headingley, a spell that was fitting of his stature, he demonstrated the chasm between his offerings and those of his team-mates (5-356). 

When a player of Bumrah’s brilliance hits, which tends to be often, a lot of cracks are papered over. But as the fourth innings showed, even India’s maverick is human.

The final act of the Headingley thriller revealed that no matter how precious a commodity Bumrah is, the team cannot solely rely on him to both create pressure and take wickets.

If India have one eye on keeping him fresh and up for selection for as long as possible in this series, the other bowlers must come to his aid in their own unique ways. 

No one expects the rest to match Bumrah’s gifts, as he is the anomaly. 

With some tender loving care from captain Gill and coach Gambhir, and a carousel of enterprising fields and bowling plans to cycle through against what has been dubbed ‘Bazball with brains’, Mohammad Siraj, Prasidh Krishna and company can stand to be legitimate threats in their own right.

Most importantly, India needs a bowling unit, and not just a bowler, to win. 

By Mohan Harihar

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