Words not aligning with actions for coach Gambhir's new-look team

THIS weekend, Villa Park, a few miles from Edgbaston, will host Black Sabbath, the rock band who made heavy metal an international obsession.

- SWAROOP SWAMINATHAN @ Chennai

For a decade, that was the sound the Indian management wanted their bowlers to generate.

Not anymore it would seem.

Before the five-match series between India and England began, skipper Shubman Gill said he would pick a bowling unit capable of plotting the fastest route to 20 wickets. Coach Gautam Gambhir had said the same thing. After the first Test loss at Headingley, both Gill and Gambhir re-emphasised their desire of selecting a bowling unit capable of it. In the first Test, they went without Kuldeep Yadav, a left-arm wrist-spinner capable of taking the surface out of the equation. In the second Test, they outdid themselves. In the week leading up to the game at an increasingly warm Edgbaston, the messaging was homogenous. "We are a team which will prioritise picking 20 wickets as soon as possible."

Yet, on Wednesday morning when Gill handed over the team sheet, it didn't resonate with the team's messaging. Jasprit Bumrah? Absent. Yadav? absent. Make it make sense because the bowling unit the visitors named didn't have lots of it. It lacked the two things the visitors had that the hosts lacked.