Where do I begin?1) Poor preparation - the wrong balance between rest and play for the West Indies series
2) Lack of warm-up fixtures for the rested players
3) Inconsistent selection - where was Murali Vijay, a like-for-like (almost) replacement for Sehwag, who would have taken the attack to England and possibly force them to change their initial bowling plans.
Where was Virat Kohli? He had a good tour of the West Indies but was jettisoned for Yuvraj Singh, a nothing bowler, a flat track bully of a batsman and a shadow of his old fielding self (before injuries).
4) Poor bowling - if the pitch is not doing anything and if the ball is not doing anything then you dry up the runs by bowling a consistent line outside off-stump and force the batsmen to make the mistake. This is something that England and South Africa have done, and something that India should have yesterday.
5) Abject field placings - that said consistent bowling needs the captain to set the right field. Dhoni not having a third-man for a large part of the innings gave England far too many cheap runs. Not having an orthodox fine leg didn't help either as the bowlers sprayed it. Also even for part-time spinners, you need to have an attacking field to create mistakes, yesterday it was like being at a dairy with all the milking that was going on.
That's just a few areas for development. The last two can be remedied for Edgbaston, but I'm not holding my breath that they will.
Agree with you about Kohli. He's looked class when I've seen him but it's only been on one-dayers. I assumed he was the natural heir to the big 3 of Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman....certainly well ahead of Raina and Yuvraj. That said, I've made that judgement without seeing him playing pace bowling on a bouncy wicket which is where so many Indian batsmen seem to struggle....
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