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10.55am: An early Pujara sighting
“I felt that I was batting well but wasn’t able to score big runs,” Pujara said. “I’ve always been confident. I’ve been getting good starts but I wanted a big one which hadn’t happened in a few games so it was really good to get some runs.
“We’ve been playing on challenging pitches, no doubt about that. There was enough assistance for spinners back home [against England]. Mentally, yes, it’s tough when you’re not among the runs but you have to be confident that it’s a matter of one innings for a batter. I always feel that if you get a good innings then you get good confidence and can always carry on from there.
“We spoke about it as a batting group. It’s always challenging here. You have to concentrate hard and the margin of error is really small. We didn’t bat well in the last game but that’s what you expect when you’re playing overseas. You’re always challenged but we’re a confident group. We’ve done well overseas whether it’s Australia or South Africa, so this team has a lot of confidence playing in overseas conditions.”
10.30am: Still no Ashwin…
India stick with the four seamers/one spinner balance: Mohammed Shami has a niggle, Ishant Sharma is left out and Ashwin continues to miss out. “Stubborn,” is Warne’s assessment. “I would have played Ashwin. You don’t pick a side just for the first innings – it will turn – and he’s got five Test hundreds.”
Virat Kohli suggested that Ravindra Jadeja is a better match-up – despite England having four left-handers – because of their right-arm seamers predominantly bowling over the wicket, creating rough outside the lefties’ off stump. “It’s something that we thought is a good match-up for Jadeja as well, because mostly all our seamers bowl over the wicket,” he said at the toss. “It’s a nice little spot for the left-handers as well. I think according to the match-ups, it fits perfectly for our team – plus the balance he is giving us with the bat as well currently.” But surely there is room in the side to pick both?
10.10am: Ashwin time?
Matt Roller is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. @mroller98