A run of 14 consecutive series wins and an experienced spin attack means the home side start as strong favourites against Ben Stokes’s tourists
The great and the powerful of Indian cricket assembled at the Park Hyatt hotel in Hyderabad on Tuesday evening for a glitzy dinner in which four years’ worth of annual awards were doled out to Ravichandran Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Deepti Sharma and others, the shifting of an almighty backlog caused by the pandemic.
In a parallel universe there would have been even more reason to celebrate on the night but one piece of silverware was missing. The World Cup that eluded Rohit Sharma’s men last November still cuts deep in India, making the five‑Test series against England that starts on Thursday a chance to restore some national pride.