England vs India, 1st Test, Leeds – Match Preview

With India all set to enter a new chapter in their Test cricket folklore after Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s retirement, it would be interesting to note how the next gen embraces the tough challenge. It is never easy to play red-ball format in English conditions and the transitional phase could not have come at a more difficult time.

But at the same time, the game has thrown down the gauntlet at the Indian team and the young players would be hungry to take up the challenge. Shubman Gill has been handed over the Test captaincy baton and he would look to lead from the front as he doesn’t have a promising foreign record.

Gill said he wants to be the best batter of the series and for India to have a chance of winning their first series on English soil since 2007, the newly appointed captain would need to walk the talk.

India has an inexperienced batting line-up and it would be crucial for the youngsters to bat with guile.

On the other hand, England have bowling woes as bowlers like Mark Wood, Jofra Archer and Gus Atkinson are not fit for the opening Test. Stokes has confirmed that Ollie Pope will bat at number three.

Head to Head: Matches: 136, Won by England: 51, Won by India: 36, Drawn: 50.

England Playing XI: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (c), Jamie Smith (wk), Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue, Shoaib Bashir

India’s Probable Playing XI: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Karun Nair, Shubman Gill (c), Rishabh Pant (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Nitish Reddy, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna

India Squad: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill(c), Rishabh Pant(w), Karun Nair, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Shardul Thakur, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Washington Sundar, Arshdeep Singh, Dhruv Jurel, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Akash Deep, Harshit Rana

England Squad: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes(c), Jamie Smith(w), Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue, Shoaib Bashir, Jamie Overton, Samuel James Cook, Jacob Bethell