Former Indian Captain Sunil Gavaskar being extremely harsh on the Indian team did not spare anyone in his interview on Tuesday. He said that that apart from Oval, there should be no space for playing two spinners and India need to get in Karun Nair in the middle for the other matches against England. “I don't think there will be any more room to play two spinners except at the Oval. I think it makes sense to bring in Karun Nair as an extra batsman at No.6; particularly because, Virat is also not 100 percent. Also when you have lost two Tests and are mentally down, someone who has not been part of a losing eleven may be in better space. I would also want Rishabh Pant to come in place of Dinesh Karthik with the gloves to add some depth, “Gavaskar said. He also suggested that the Indian players are in love with London and which is why they did not leave for Nottingham on Sunday when they should have for getting an extra day of practice before the third Test against England. England thrashed Virat Kohli’s Team India by an innings and 159 runs in the second Test, which ended on Sunday. With the second Test ending inside four days, India has got an extra day to practice before the third Test goes underway on Saturday. However, Kohli and Co did not travel to Nottingham, the location of the next match, on Monday and former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar cannot understand the reason behind it. “I can understand they have taken the day off today. They are still licking the wounds of the defeat at Lord's but they should have been planning to leave for Nottingham after today which would have been the last day of the Lord's Test and practice from tomorrow. But clearly, as we have seen from the start of the ODI series, they are in love with London. You cannot get practice facilities in London as easily as you would in Nottingham - I hope they practice from Tuesday. And there should be no optional practice. Everybody needs to get down to practice There's no such thing as optional practice when you are 0-2 down," he said. "You don't just need net practice but practice matches also. One should strive for practice games between third and fourth Test as well when there is space. There may possibly be some new players coming in after the third Test and they need some practice time as well. These things have to be thought about. I have been saying this since January when the South Africa tour was lost. But perhaps we are old-fashioned, who don't understand modern day cricket,” any angry Gavaskar added. Mocking the other Indian batsmen, Gavaskar suggested that Virat Kohli has to assess his injury himself and he thinks Kohli should play unless he can’t bend or walk. “Kohli has to assess his injury and whether to take the risk or not. But if I were the captain, I would want Kohli to play even if he's 50 percent fit. He's such a crucial element. He has to play unless he can't bend or walk. At the end of the day he has to decide how much pain he can bear. For me Virat has to play,” Gavaskar added.<doc-sep>India will have to fight out of a corner if they have to stay alive in the five-Test series against England as they go into the third match with a 0-2 deficit and tremendous pressure back home to perform. India's inning and 159-run loss at Lord's was possibly the lowest moment for the side in a long time and Virat Kohli and coach Ravi Shastri were both feeling the heat after that loss. While the series is still alive, it would be a Herculean task for the visitors to pull themselves back as the English look to have all bases covered while India are struggling to find a toehold. The Indian batting has struggled and all three openers used so far - Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay and KL Rahul - have looked clueless against the swing of the England fast bowlers. Even the middle order has struggled, barring a superlative performance by Virat Kohli in the Edgbaston Test, where he scored a century and a half-century, albeit in a losing cause. But he has had precious little support from the rest, including vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane, who is one of the most compact batsmen in the line-up. Coach Ravi Shastri had asserted that the struggling batsmen need to show more discipline and grit in the third Test. He admitted that the team has not played well and needed to up their game if they are to make a comeback. In the bowling department, Jasprit Bumrah has been declared fit and available for selection for the third Test against England. Pacers Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami have been among wickets in the previous Test but have failed to show consistency. Meanwhile for England, the selection of all-rounder Ben Stokes is still not assured. Coach Trevor Bayliss had welcomed Stokes back after he was found not guilty of affray after a bar fight last year but said the troubled all-rounder was not assured of an automatic selection for the third Test. India will look to become only the second team in history to win a five-Test series from 2-0 down after a Don Bradman-inspired Australia achieved the feat against England back in 1936/37. Squads: India: Virat Kohli (capt), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Ishant Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravichandran Ashwin, Murali Vijay, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav, Lokesh Rahul, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Shikhar Dhawan, Umesh Yadav, Karun Nair, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Rishabh Pant Promoted England: Joe Root (capt), Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Stuart Broad, Jos Buttler, Alastair Cook, Sam Curran, Keaton Jennings, Ollie Pope, Jamie Porter, Adil Rashid, Chris Woakes. (With AFP inputs)<doc-sep>READ ALSO: Ben Stokes gives England happy headache Pujara to the rescue? NOTTINGHAM: The quiet, blustery Nottingham seems some distance away from the chilly, buzzing London. While the English capital has experienced quite a bit of rain in the last few days, this central Midlands city known for the legend of Robin Hood is still enjoying a dry spell. However, the breeze that blows across Trent Bridge, the iconic cricket stadium close to the river Trent, should aid swing king James Anderson and Co.England, after going 2-0 up, are enjoying a well-deserved break and will be back in the nets on Thursday. The Indian team too is in the middle of a similar break and on Wednesday morning they hoisted the Tricolour in London to mark Independence Day before starting for Nottingham. They too will train from Thursday. Virat Kohli , though, has more on his plate than his English counterpart Joe Root .While his fitness is definitely one of those, one huge area of concern for the Indian team going into the third Test starting on Saturday is the form of the openers. Not that any batsman other than Kohli has come close to looking comfortable on this tour, but the Indian team has already played all its cards as far as the opening slot is concerned.While in the first Test it was Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay who opened the innings, the second Test saw Vijay and KL Rahul taking guard. But such is India's plight that all three have failed to make any impact. While Dhawan managed 26 and 13 in Birmingham, Vijay, in addition to the pair at Lord's, got 20 and 6 in the first Test. Rahul batted at No. 3 at Birmingham before being promoted to the opener's slot at Lord's, and his scores of 4, 13, 10 and 4 haven't come close to inspiring confidence.It's true that the red Duke ball does quite a bit when it's new, but the technical deficiencies of the openers have been out there in the open. While Rahul and Dhawan seem to get drawn into playing the away-going deliveries way too easily, Vijay's tendency to play on the on-side against the swinging ball has made him vulnerable to the likes of Anderson. "It's a basic that you don't try to play a shot on the on-side against the moving ball. I don't know what they are doing and whether the coaches are telling them where they are going wrong," former India wicketkeeper Farokh Engineer , who also opened occasionally and has a lot of experience in England, told TOI after the Lord's debacle.In the first half of the Test series in England in 2014, Vijay had looked assured against the ball outside the off stump and he was ready to leave a lot of deliveries. But that sense of assurance is somehow missing from his game this time and it means a huge amount of pressure on the middle-order, especially Kohli.A top No. 4 doesn't mind coming in at 10/2 a few times, but if it becomes a regular feature, it takes quite a toll on the player. Sachin Tendulkar , in the pre Virender Sehwag-Rahul Dravid era, had to deal with such situations regularly and now Kohli, too, is facing a similar test.Kohli, himself, though, is not ready to blame the openers in public, rather he wants to say it's a collective failure. "Even if you're 10 for 2, it doesn't mean that the guys following after should just succumb. And we should not expect sitting in the change room that we will only bat at 100 for 2. We have to look forward to the difficult situation and try to make that into a good situation," Kohli said, giving the impression that he wanted to share the blame.The fact remains that opening is one area where India have already run out of options and Dinesh Karthik , who opened during the 2007 Test series here, is in woeful form in the middle-order. So Kohli either has to get Dhawan back in the XI and hope that he has a lucky day or try Cheteshwar Pujara for the slot, something that he had done against Sri Lanka in 2015, when the Saurashtra batsman carried the bat in the first innings in a series-decider.The fact that Pujara played 87 balls in the second innings in testing conditions at Lord's could make Kohli think about the plan, but he would also know that England and Sri Lanka are not exactly in the same league.Come Thursday, India will hit the nets and we will get a first glimpse of Kohli's contingency plan.<doc-sep>The Indian cricket team was left shattered as England crush India by an innings and 159 runs at Lord's. Indian batsmen failed to learn from their mistakes and were all vulnerable against the moving ball as the second innings folded up for 130 in 47 overs. Another batting collapse saw India suffer one of their biggest defeats in recent times. Although the first day of play being completely washed out, the match was completed on the fourth day, with England emerging victorious. Some of the calls that Virat Kohli took in the second Test were questionable, and it influenced the outcome of the match. The third Test is at Trent Bridge in a few days. If India wants to stay alive in the series, they need to bounce back hard and learn from their mistakes. As Virat Kohli always does, a few changes are expected in the playing XI. So, let's take a look at the probable XI for India in the third Test. #1 Murali Vijay Murali Vijay Vijay is one of the pillars of the Indian batting line-up in Tests. In the recent past, he has struggled to make an impact with his batting. However, he is likely to keep his place in the side for now. Vijay is one of the best batsmen for India in overseas conditions. #2 Shikhar Dhawan Shikhar Dhawan "Shikhar Dhawan should have got a second chance," was what even the original 'Little Master' Sunil Gavaskar said after Dhawan was dropped for the second Test. Judging a player on the basis of a single game isn't fair. Dhawan could be inserted in the playing XI for the third Test as his exclusion from the XI wasn't fair. Dhawan batting left-handed gives India's line-up variety. 1 / 4 NEXT<doc-sep>
How quickly fortunes change in the game of cricket. Before the start of the five-match Test series against England, the Indian cricket team had a problem of plenty. 'All-star' batting line-up, world-class spinners and a promising pace battery. Two matches into the series, the visitors are struggling to string together a competitive XI. Such has been the performance of the Virat Kohli-led side so far, that in-form England keeper-batsman Jonny Bairstow on Wednesday was forced to reflect on the possibility of a five-nil series sweep for the hosts. Although he reckoned it's too early to think on those lines, there are many who reckon it's a real possibility. A major reason for India's dismal showing in the first two matches was inaccurate team selection. Captain Kohli and coach Ravi Shastri have faced much heat over the past week for their puzzling approach towards picking the best XI. Going into the third Test, all eyes will be on the men that take the field for the beleaguered visitors. In the first game, when the wicket was dry, India went in with just the one spinner in Ravichandran Ashwin. In the next game, when the conditions were predominantly overcast, they added Kuldeep Yadav in the team. Even Shikhar Dhawan's exclusion, after being one of the few batsmen who managed to get a start in the first game, seemed a a knee-jerk reaction. The left-hander's replacement in the team was Cheteshwar Pujara. The experienced right-hander didn't get many runs, but he did manage to spend some time in the middle under hostile conditions. Now, as India look to zero in on their best XI for the third Test in Nottingham that starts on Saturday, skipper Kohli has dropped a hint of sorts with regards to team selection. Kohli posted a picture of himself on his official Twitter account late on Thursday. In the image, the talismanic leader is seen standing next to Pujara during a Team India practice session at Trent Bridge. Both batsmen are padded up and look determined to make the most of their training stint. The caption in Kohli's post read: "Great day at training today. Looking forward to the next game." Here's his tweet Great day at training today. Looking forward to the next game. pic.twitter.com/RSvnH4EZdm — Virat Kohli (@imVkohli) August 16, 2018 On Wednesday, Kohli was himself seen giving throw-downs to Pujara during the net session. One can't say for sure if this picture shared by him implies that Pujara will retain his place in the third Test. Either way, India have no margin for error in terms of team selection for the remainder of this series.