England Cricket / Michael Vaughan / 09 August 2011 /

Michael Vaughan thinks India's returning man could struggle against England's swing attack

If Zaheer Khan, Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag had all been fit for the first two Tests things could have been a lot closer at this stage of proceedings. Instead, Khan lasted just one day, Gambhir missed the second Test and Sehwag will be making his debut in this series when the action gets under way in Birmingham after finally recovering from injury.

In many ways Sehwag is a unique player in Test cricket. To have a career strike rate of 81.0 having played 81 matches is an incredible feat that will take some beating. He's an incredibly dangerous batsman at the top of the order and we've seen how, when batting in the sub-continent and well-set, he normally goes on to get big scores.

That said, I'm not convinced he's going to have a big impact on the rest of this series.

His record in England isn't great and he's struggled with the swinging ball before, as recently as their tour of South Africa last year. He's been out of competitive cricket for a long time and hardly got any time at the crease in that warm-up match against Northamptonshire so he won't be fully prepared for world-class bowling on a pitch that could so something.

The key here will be for the likes of James Anderson and Stuart Broad to bowl as straight as possible and try to get him out-bowled or LBW. We know how devastating he can be if you give him width but if the ball is nipping back at him towards his pads he can struggle to get it away. If the England bowlers manage to bowl straight enough, Sehwag's return to Test cricket could be short-lived.

As far as first innings Top Indian Batsman honours go, we have to persist with Sachin Tendulkar. He looked a lot more comfortable at the crease during his second innings knock at Trent Bridge and this could be the game where he goes on to get a really big score, albeit, once again, in vain.

For England, I think Andrew Strauss has made some decent starts before getting out and the same could happen here again. But such is the nature of England's batting line-up these days that you can score 80-odd only for someone to come in at 7 or 8 and score a century so it may be best to back Andrew Strauss at [5.6] and look to lay off if he hits [2.5] In-Play.

1pt Back Sachin Tendulkar to be first innings Top Indian batsman @ [4.7]
1pt Back-to-lay Andrew Strauss @ [5.6]

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