India head to Lord's full of questions but Virat Kohli cannot be the only answer

A win for the visitors would set this series up deliciously but it’ll take more than their brilliant skipper to get them there

India have questions to answer at the home of cricket (Action Images via Reuters)

England vs India at Lord’s is one of those fixtures that rarely fails to deliver. Whether it's Ishant Sharma bowling India to a famous victory in 2014, Graham Gooch’s triple-century in 1990 or the sight of a shirtless and jubilant Sourav Ganguly on the pavilion balcony in 2002, Lord’s somehow manages to distil the very flavour of this rich and raucous rivalry, this clash of cricket’s two establishments.

Typically, it has been a site for Indian heroism, if not always Indian triumph. Ajit Agarkar hitting a superb and utterly pointless century in 2002; Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s series-defining rearguard in 2007; Dilip Vengsarkar’s three centuries here in the 1970s and 1980s, the only overseas batsman to record that feat. Further back, there was poor Vinoo Mankad in 1952, who scored 72 and 184 with the new Queen watching from the pavilion, bowled almost 100 overs in the game, took five wickets, and still ended up soundly beaten. As Len Hutton put it, Mankad was essentially playing England “on his own”.

Remind you of anyone in particular? Virat Kohli doesn’t bowl, of course, although you get the feeling he could if he really worked at it. But whether as captain, fieldsman, batting anchor or batting bludgeon, Kohli very nearly won last week’s Edgbaston Test all by himself, scoring 200 runs in the game and producing the key run-out of Joe Root on day one. When he finally missed a straight one from Ben Stokes on the fourth morning, India’s hope went with him. It’s a luxuriously invidious fate for India to be in: if you are going to tether your hopes to one man, it may as well be someone as good as Kohli.

Kohli very nearly won the first Test on his own (Action Images via Reuters)

But perhaps it’s time for his team-mates to start helping him out a little. Gravity suggests the master will have an off-day sooner or later. History suggests that five-match series are won by teams more than individuals. And so as the second Test begins at Lord’s on Thursday, India will need some of their other highly-remunerated stars to start justifying their seats on the plane.

It was the batsmen who let India down in Birmingham, and with clouds set to roll in towards the end of the week, the top six remains their main headache. Shikhar Dhawan’s compulsion to hit his way out of trouble makes his a prime candidate for sacrifice. Cheteshwar Pujara - out of form but with more experience of English conditions than anyone in the squad - could replace him, with KL Rahul moving up to open with Murali Vijay.

Alternatively, six specialist batsmen are an option, with all-rounder Hardik Pandya - who bowled just 10 overs at Edgbaston - making way. Equally, India’s bowling coach Bharat Arun described it as a “conservative option”, and India will be aware that with its quick outfield and true bounce, Lord’s is the sort of place where lower-order hitters can prosper. It was Ravindra Jadeja and Bhuvneshwar Kumar who took the game away from England four years ago. Meanwhile, Stuart Broad averages 30 with the bat here, which is more than Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Jacques Kallis or Ricky Ponting. It’s a strange ground.

The Indian skipper cannot do it alone (AFP/Getty Images)

The good news for India is that England have all the same problems at 1-0 up in the series that they did when it was scoreless. An inability to build a platform against the new ball; Joe Root’s lack of centuries; dropped catches; a vulnerability to collapses; the potential retirement of three all-time greats all at once, and the sort of identity crisis that results when everyone says Test cricket is dying and the board has just decided that Twenty20 is fine but a little bit too long.

Then, of course, there is the ugly undercurrent to this game, seeping past it like a dirty slick. The trial of Ben Stokes in Bristol has given cricket the sort of front-page coverage the media department at the England and Wales Cricket Board could only dream of, and yet even in its early stages it has raised uncomfortable cultural questions for the game, and this team, as a whole. Whatever the verdict in Bristol, Stokes will face his own reckoning from the ECB’s disciplinary panel once the trial is over, and at the very least it constitutes an entirely avoidable distraction as England try to protect their narrow series lead.

England must cope without Stokes (AFP/Getty Images)

In the interim, England will need to replace four players: Stokes the batsman, Stokes the containing bowler, Stokes the strike bowler and Stokes the fielder. It can’t be done, of course, and so the likelihood is that Chris Woakes or Moeen Ali will step in to offer some engine-room clout, with the final choice dependent on conditions. And even if spinners have had a decent record at Lord’s in recent years, history counsels that we should never underestimate England’s appetite for dropping Adil Rashid.

Surrey’s Ollie Pope is in line for a Test debut, at No 4, which for all the justifiable excitement over the unveiling of a lavish talent, is indicative too of an England side blinking nervously into a bright future: still experimenting, still stumbling, still searching for its voice. Win this, and the series is surely theirs; equally, however, England have surrendered their last four 1-0 leads at the first opportunity. That alone is reason enough for India to take heart. A win for the visitors would set this series up deliciously. But it’ll take more than Kohli to get them there.