India's top order faces familiar questions before the away leg
India travel with most of their selection settled, but the same top-order pattern has followed them through the home season and it is worth naming before conditions make it louder.
The first ten overs
The scoring rate inside the powerplay has been healthy. The problem is variance: too many innings have ended with two down before the field spread, which hands the middle order a rebuild rather than a platform.
A good average across a series can still hide a top order that is losing the first hour.
Why the away leg sharpens it
Surfaces with more carry punish a tentative first twenty balls in a way home pitches do not. The selectors' choice is between backing the incumbents through a difficult month or making a change while the series is still live.
