Ansari, Broad doubtful as England ponder selection

Zafar Ansari has joined Stuart Broad as an injury doubt ahead of the third Test after both players missed training in Mohali on Thursday.

While the England management have yet to confirm anything, it seems Broad has almost no chance of playing. He sustained a foot injury on the opening day of the Visakhapatnam Test and has been hobbling around in a moon boot in recent days.

Ansari’s situation is less clear. He has recovered from the illness that troubled him in Vizag, but is still struggling with a sore back. He will have to prove his fitness in training on Friday if he is to have any chance of playing in the Test that starts on Saturday. Fellow spinner Gareth Batty is therefore likely to come back into the side if Ansari is ruled out.

Any thoughts that England may have had of playing an extra seamer were surely scotched by a first look at the Test pitch in Mohali. Dry, cracked and shaved, there is nothing in it to suggest a fourth seamer would be a lot of use.

That is not ideal, though. Batty, like Moeen Ali, is an offspinner and, against an India line-up packed with right-handers, the left-arm option that Ansari provided could be missed.

There is another option. England could pick an extra batsman, allowing them to retain Ben Duckett – they are keen not to dent his confidence – and find a place for Jos Buttler. Moeen Ali would probably be moved back down to No. 8, with Chris Woakes at nine and Adil Rashid at ten, but it is England’s batting that has let them down and, in the cooler climate of Mohali – think of a pleasant day in England in May – there is less need for a sixth bowler to share the workload.

It is unlikely they will adopt such an approach. Alastair Cook likes the balance of an attack that contains three seamers and three spinners and, with a couple of those spinners a little more inconsistent than he would like, the insurance policy of the extra …

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