Five issues facing England ahead of Test series against India

England name their squad for the opening Test of the five-match series with India this Thursday. Scyld Berry looks at five areas England need to address ahead of the opener at Edgbaston.

Match fitness of Anderson and Broad

James Anderson and Stuart Broad have to prove their match fitness in the round of championship matches starting tomorrow.

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Anderson’s right shoulder has been suffering with the wear and tear which naturally results from taking 540 Test wickets, but he has already had a comeback game for Lancashire 2nd XI and will step up his workload in the Roses match at Old Trafford.

Broad, who damaged ligaments in his left ankle when bowling the first ball of a spell earlier this season, will test it out in Nottinghamshire’s game against table-topping Surrey at Trent Bridge.

The wider picture is that England have to reduce their chronic over-dependence on Anderson and Broad, who currently take well over half of England’s Test wickets, as a matter of urgency.

Anderson will be 36 when the five-Test series against India begins, Broad 32, and England have to allow for the possibility of their not being around next summer for the Ashes.

Chris Woakes is the natural fit as third seamer for the first Test against India, because Edgbaston is his home ground and its high stands favour outswing, but is not a long-term prospect for opening the bowling as his record abroad is so poor.

Mark Wood, with a limited shelf-life owing to his left ankle, has become an integral part of England’s one-day squad and should be preserved for the World Cup. That leaves Jake Ball as the bowler best equipped to take the new ball for England at home and abroad, and he must be given the chance during this series.

England's need for left-arm spinner

Moeen Ali had the most successful of summers last year, when he took 25 wickets at only 15 each against South Africa. It was followed by the worst of winters when his five wickets in six Tests in Australia and New Zealand cost 125 runs each. His ODI bowling has been steady - if not penetrative - throughout.

Against India however, for their main spinner, England need a left-armer who can turn the ball away from their right-handers (Shikhar Dhawan their only lefthander) - not an off-spinner like Moeen, or Dom Bess, who filled in admirably as an all-rounder in the two Tests against Pakistan after Somerset’s left-armer Jack Leach broke his left thumb.

On his Test debut in Christchurch, Leach proved his all-round steadiness, and would have finished with more than two wickets if England’s close-catching had been Test standard on the last day. Leach is not a flighty, flakey spinner who wilts when attacked because, as a boy, he grew up being belted by men in Taunton club cricket. And India will try to hit England’s spinner out of the attack, so that England’s four seamers cannot rest. Moeen’s Test career should resume when England need a second spinner, whether this summer or in Sri Lanka this autumn.

Cook’s latest partner

Keaton Jennings scored no more than 29 on his recall to the England side for the second Test against Pakistan at Headingley, but the self-assurance - which his predecessor Mark Stoneman had increasingly lacked - was there. Jennings and Alastair Cook added 53 in the most solid, alarm-free opening partnership England had put together for a long time.

Jennings’ technique had also improved since last summer, his foot movements more pronounced (indeed he was warned by the square-leg umpire for standing on the business part of the pitch). Only when Jennings got out did he lapse into static and statuesque mode. For credentials against spin, he has his century on Test debut against India.

Root and his conversion rate

England’s Test captain is back in the runs, coming in at No 3 against India in the last two ODIs and batting through the innings to make an unbeaten and match-winning century. Can he now do the same in Test matches - after making 13 fifties but only one century in his last 15 Tests? Or is this rhythm disturbed by his insistence on playing T20 for Yorkshire - as on Friday in the Roses T20 - and England, with the completely different mind-set required?

How to optimise Buttler

In his last Test, Buttler came in at 212-5, the game still in the balance, and took it away from Pakistan in his innings of 80 not out off only 101 balls.

Much as batsmen loath not having a fixed position in normal circumstances, should not England adapt in order to make the most of Buttler in his purple patch?

If India select their left-arm wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav, should not Buttler be promoted when he comes on? Only Root played Kuldeep more safely than Buttler during the ODI series, while Jonny Bairstow and Ben Stokes never got to grips with him.

Buttler could be the new Kevin Pietersen, without the baggage attached.