Former England off-spinner Graeme Swann has predicted India to come out victors against England in the 5-match Test series. Although he felt the teams were even in terms of bowling, Swann reckoned India have a better batting line-up.
Team India is currently preparing for the Test series in Durham. The first Test will take place at Trent Bridge in Nottingham on August 4. Talking about the series, Swann compared the two teams and mentioned that the likelihood of seeing four results.
“One Test will be rained off. There will be one match in England that will be a draw; normally Manchester or Birmingham in recent times. But I think there will be four results,” he said.
India recently lost the World Test Championship (WTC) final to New Zealand. However, Swann still feels India is stronger than England and expected a 3-1 win for the visitors.
“After watching England play New Zealand, and then New Zealand play India, I think India is in a better place batting-wise. Bowling, I think it’s similar. So I’m gonna say 3-1 to India. I really wanna back England obviously. But we’re so weak on the spin bowling at the moment. I’m going with India. It doesn’t fill me with joy to say that but I think India is the better team,” Swann observed.
“Virat Kohli absolutely dominated the last time he came here” – Graeme Swann
Graeme Swann, who played 178 matches for England, praised Team India skipper Virat Kohli’s mindset to improve his game. Swann mentioned how Kohli struggled to play James Anderson in the 2014 tour. He managed to turn it around in the 2018 series, emerging as the top scorer.
“The last time Virat came here, he absolutely dominated. Jimmy Anderson used to get him out fun in England. It was embarrassing. Virat went away and worked on his game to an extent that he didn’t get out to Jimmy at all in the next series,” the 42-year-old asserted.
Virat Kohli scored 593 runs in the 2018 tour of England, which included two monumental hundreds. Swann feels Kohli could repeat his performance in the upcoming games. It will be interesting to see if Kohli can break his century drought having as many as five games to do it in.
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