Firstpost Spodcast Episode 7: Predictions for India-England Tests, Indians at BWF Championships and more on our daily sports podcast

Welcome to Spodcast, the daily sports update on Firstpost where we discuss briefly the big sports headlines of the day. Today we look at who’s saying what about the India-England Test series, which starts on Wednesday, the progress of the Indian shuttlers at the ongoing BWF World Championships in China as well as Karman Kaur Thandi becoming only the sixth Indian woman to break into the WTA top 200. We’re one day away from the start of the first Test match between India and England. Firstpost spoke to star South African bowler Dale Steyn about India’s chances in England, especially the bowling department. Meanwhile, India vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane said India’s bowling attack will have to be patient if they want to scalp 20 wickets in the Test, especially given the fickle English weather. He also said patience could be a virtue for the batting line up as well. England batsman Alastair Cook sympathised with teammate Adil Rashid after his surprise Test call up, and said he believes Rashid is mature enough to handle the criticism surrounding his controversial selection for the first Test. Meanwhile, ex-Indian cricketer Farokh Engineer made bombastic statement about Indian batsman KL Rahul. In an interaction with Firstpost , he said that the lad from Bengaluru has the potential to become the next Sachin Tendulkar or Sunil Gavaskar. Badminton now, and the 2018 BWF World Championships are underway in China. In Tuesday’s matchups, world number 7 Kidambi Srikanth takes on the 87th ranked Vietnamese teenager Nguyen Nhat, and Saina Nehwal, seeded 10th, will be challenged by Aliye Demirbag of Turkey. Wednesday will see world No  3 PV Sindhu go up against the 20th-ranked Fitriani of Indonesia. Women’s tennis to round off this podcast, and Karman Kaur Thandi has become only the sixth Indian woman singles player to break into the WTA top 200. The 20-year-old has shown pretty good form of late and won a maiden ITF singles title in Hong Kong.