Published: Jun 18, 2025, 08:20 PM (IST)
Edited: Jun 18, 2025, 08:20 PM (IST)
Indian team has witnessed a transition in a new era- as veteran players R Ashwin, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli retired from Test cricket within the last 6 months with young players being named in the squad. Now the young team is going to tour England for a five-match Test series.
Now, as speculations were being made regarding the lineup, vice-captain of the team- Rishabh Pant- has confirmed that Shubman Gill is going to bat at No. 4 in the lineup during the series, while he is going to follow the skipper at the fifth position.
The retirement of veteran player Virat Kohli made it mandatory for India to find a new batter for the fourth position, and Shubman Gill is now going to fulfill the vacant spot and will bat at the pivotal position.
“I think there is still discussion going on about who is going to play 3. But 4, 5 are definitely fixed. I think Shubman is going to bat at 4 and I am going to stick to No. 5 as of now, and rest we are going to keep on discussing that,” he said.
“Me and him, we gel really well together. We keep on having conversations and the kind of comfort zone we have with each other, I think that is really going to be special for us,” he later added.
England lineup is also going to be without their veteran pacers James Anderson and Stuart Broad, to which Rishabh Pant said that it’s a good thing for the Indian lineup to have the legendary pair missing from the opposition.
“Definitely, it feels so good when both (Anderson and Broad) are not there. Because coming from the last two tours, they’ve been there for England for so many years and I’ve only come for two tours. But at the same time, they have enough ammunition as an England bowling line-up,” he said.
“We don’t want to take anyone lightly because our team is also young. They’re still looking to develop themselves. But at the same time, we’ve got to play our cricket and respect the bowlers and opposition where it needs it,” he explained.
Indian squad for England tour:
Shubman Gill (C), Rishabh Pant (VC/wk), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudarshan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav.
The Venues and schedule for the whole series:
1) First Test: June 20-24, Headingley (Leeds)
2) Second Test: July 2-6, Edgbaston (Birmingham)
3) Third Test: July 10-14, Lord’s (London)4)
4) Fourth Test, July 23-27, Old Trafford (Manchester)
5)Fifth Test: July 31- August 4, The Oval (London)
