India are just a week away from their first Test match of the five-match series against England, set to be played from June 20 at Headingley. And Indian players are leaving no stone unturned in their preparation to face a full-strength England side in the competitive series. A new-look Indian outfit will take on England in what is considered to be a challenging series for Team India in the absence of senior players Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Ravichandran Ashwin, who have called time on their Test careers.
Veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin retired from Test cricket last year, and Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli said goodbye to Test cricket last month. Meanwhile, Indian head coach Gautam Gambhir wants the current set of Indian players to make the most of the opportunity and do something special for the country.
"All I want to say is that there are two ways of looking at this. One is that we are without our three most experienced players, or we have got this phenomenal opportunity to do something special for the country. When I look around this group, I think there's hunger, passion, and the commitment to do something special. If we make sacrifices, if we come out of our comfort zones, if we start fighting, not every day, but every session, every hour, every ball, I think we can have a memorable tour. Make sure we start that from today only. We start enjoying playing for the country because there's no bigger honour," Gambhir said in a video shared by the BCCI.
India have handed maiden call-ups to the youngsters Arshdeep Singh and Sai Sudharsan. Moreover, batter Karun Nair has made his comeback to the side after seven years.
Indian squad: Shubman Gill (c), Rishabh Pant (vc, wk), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudarshan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel, Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav