India's assistant coach Ten Doeschate drops hints on India's probable XI for second Test against England

Birmingham [UK], June 30 (ANI): Ahead of the second Test at Edgbaston on July 2, India assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate on Monday shed light on players that are likely to be included in the playing XI for the second Test of the five-match series.

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India will take on England in the second Test of the five-match series at Edgbaston, Birmingham, which will be played from July 2 to 6.

Speaking at the pre-match press conference, Ten Doeschate hinted that left-arm seamer Arshdeep Singh, all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy and spinner Kuldeep Yadav are the likely players who can get a chance to feature in the playing XI for the visitors in the Edgbaston Test.

"I think I've said yes to every single player. Again, going back to the spin combination, if we are going to go two spinners, Arshdeep provides a little bit more control. You've got a left-armer running in over the wickets, if we do want to put our eggs in that basket. I don't know if you saw the seamers, they all had a good trot out today. We believe that they're all present and eligible for selection. Looking over the five series, we need to manage the five seamers effectively. We do have the out-and-out seamers. But Arshdeep is definitely in the selection mix for this Test," the assistant coach said.

Furthermore, the 45-year-old stated that Nitish Kumar Reddy is their "premium batting all-rounder" and has a very good chance of getting into the line-up for the second match of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy.

"He's very close to getting a game. He was fantastic in Australia. Coming into the team and playing the way he did. We just felt, on balance, for the last game, we wanted to go with the bowling all-rounder. We thought Shardul Thakur was slightly ahead on the bowling front. We're exploring ways to reconfigure the puzzle. We can get a batting all-rounder in, and Nitish is our premium batting all-rounder at the moment. I would say it's a very good chance to play this test," he added.

In the end, Ten Doeschate discussed Kuldeep Yadav's chances of featuring in the playing XI for the visitors in the Edgbaston Test.

"We'd love to get him into the team. Playing two all-rounders in the last game, we're desperate. It would have been nice to have a spin in the last game. Also, we're trying to make the best assessment of what we see in front of us. We know we're going to need three seamers in this game. It's just how you manage that 6-7-8 role. The guys are going to play that role. Whether we can fit Kuldeep in now or save him for later in the series, if the weather stays like I said, it should turn somewhere along the line. You talked about the number 6-7-8," he concluded.

Squads:

India: Shubman Gill (C), Rishabh Pant (VC & WK), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav.

England: Ben Stokes (capt), Jofra Archer, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook, Brydon Carse, Sam Cook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Jamie Overton, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jamie Smith, Josh Tongue, Chris Woakes. (ANI)

(The story has come from a syndicated feed and has not been edited by the Tribune Staff.)