Hayden, Smith feel India’s inexperience could hurt them in England     

India have “lost a lot of experience” with the recent retirements of stalwarts Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma and are going to struggle in the seaming conditions of England, reckoned cricket legends Matthew Hayden and Graeme Smith.

India will be led by Shubman Gill in the five-match Test series, which is starting at Headingley from Friday, and the touring party’s batting line-up will be thin on experience with both Kohli and Rohit announcing their retirements from the format last month.

“I feel India are really going to struggle. Shubman Gill is a young captain coming to this hostile environment, seaming conditions, bouncing conditions. It’s going to be a real challenge, it’s actually absolutely the litmus test as a touring team,” Hayden told the ICC.

“Generally touring teams come here and it is polar opposite conditions to what you are used to as fundamentally as a player, be it young or old. So lots of adjustments, so I predict that England, let me tell you, are a going to have a pretty good party at the end of that series,” the former Australia opener said.

Weighing in with his prediction for the blockbuster series, former South Africa captain Smith said he feels the peerless Jasprit Bumrah will be overburdened in conditions too familiar to England.

“England at home, they really do play well at home. They understand the conditions and get the best out of it. I think it’s going to be a challenge for Shubman and his team, lost a lot of experience, got to come here and that pressure shifts onto different people...” Smith said.

“I think Bumrah is going to carry a huge amount of the bowling attack. So I think England will have the better of India in these conditions,” he added.

Besides Kohli and Rohit, there will also be no R Aswhin, who called it quits after the third Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Brisbane last December.

The last time India won a Test series in England was in 2007, only the third instance (1971 and 1986 being the other two) when the visitors emerged victorious in that part of the world since the start of bilateral engagements in 1932.