The fact that this game will be played under lights with a pink ball, however, tends to suggest that there may be one assistance there for the faster men.

Mustafizur Rahman will lead the pace attack and although his effectiveness has tapered in recent times as injury and form concerns have made life difficult, he may find the conditions at Indore and Kolkata to his liking.

He is likely to be assisted by the inexperienced Abu Jayed, who is quite hasty by all accounts but still raw at this level.

The major concern for the Indian hosts may not be who to play, but rather who to leave out.

The recent form of Rohit Sharma at the top of the order suggests that he is finally ready to convert his dominance of the short game into consistent runs in the long form, whilst the impressive start to the test career of Mayank Agarwal has been good enough to keep the experienced Shikhar Dhawan and the youthful Shubman Gill at bay.

The middle order of the almost-unbowlable Cheteshwar Pujara, arguably the world's best all-wicket batsman in Virat Kohli and the stylish Ajinkya Rahane has shown the ability to make runs against the very best attacks in any conditions.

This has allowed Hanuma Vihari to come into the batting order at number six with seamless effect.

Once an attack has disposed of these six, their work is only half done.


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The middle order is complemented by either the busy Wriddhiman Saha, or the explosive Rishabh Pant at seven depending on which wicketkeeper they wish to employ.

Saha probably has the edge on an improving Pant in terms of glovemanship, but both have shown that they can be effective with the bat at test level using their preferred methods to get the job done.

Spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindran Jadeja play a dual role in this side. Not only are they both match-winners with ball in hand, with Ashwin's right-arm off-spin complimenting Jadeja's left-arm offerings perfectly, but both bat well enough that they would be considered for top-order postings in many test nations.

The final two places will probably go to pace bowlers for the first match at Indore. The three vying for the two positions, Mohammad Shami, Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav, have all shown enough in recent matches to suggest that they are worthy of a start. Three into two won't go however, and I fear that Ishant may be the unfortunate party here.

Umesh will look to bustle in and hit the pick hard, whilst the craft of Shami will prove the perfect foil to both he and the spinners.

The only test match to be played at Indore, the 2016 encounter with New Zealand, saw India employ a common formula on home soil.

Their mammoth first innings of 557 for five was built upon a 365-run fourth wicket stand between Kohli and Rahane, before Ashwin's thirteen wickets for 140 spun India to a huge 321-run victory.

The day/night format may keep the scores closer on this occasion, but the elephant in the room may be the brittle nature of the Bangladeshi middle-order, especially when compared with India's settled top six.

Whilst Bangladesh have begun to show the propensity for upsetting test cricket's major nations in recent years, and come to the test series on the back of a creditable showing in the 20/20 series, it would take everything to go right for them to win this series.

Such results have been occurring ever since David slew Goliath however, and it's well worth watching whenever that happens.


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