Stuart Broad sustained a tear to his right calf and has been ruled out of Test series.
Ahead of the second Test at Lord’s on Thursday (August 12), former Indian cricketer Aakash Chopra warned Team India not to take things lightly at all after England lost their premier bowler in Stuart Broad, as the ongoing Test series will be still be a closely-fought series.
Ahead of the second Test, England lost the services of their experienced pacer Broad for the entire five-match Test series to make things more difficult for the hosts, as they will not have already the services of their star all-rounder Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer for the home series.
While Stokes took an indefinite break from cricket to take care of his mental well-being, Archer is recovering from an injury, whereas Chris Woakes hasn’t recovered yet – which definitely makes things easy for the Indian cricket team to march ahead to win their first Test series in the UK after 2007.
However, the commentator admitted that England is facing an injury crisis at the moment, but feels India shouldn't take the hosts lightly, as he expects the ongoing five-match Test series to be a close and hard-fought affair between the two Test cricket giants.
Chopra wrote on Twitter: “First Jofra. Then Stokes pulled out. Now, Broad is injured. And Woakes hasn’t recovered yet. While everything is pointing towards things getting easier for India to clinch the series but I have a strong feeling that it’ll be a much closer series than most people think.”