India vs England Playing 11, 1st Test: Shubman Gill-led India to experiment with new look squad, who will make the cut?

A new-look Indian team led by young captain Shubman Gill will begin World Test Championship 2025-27 with the first of the five Tests against England at Headingley, Leeds on Friday.

It will be interesting to see what the combination will be, with the team in transition, team India vice-captain Rishabh Pant on Wednesday confirmed that he will continue to bat at no.5 in the upcoming five-match Test series against England, while captain Shubman Gill will take Virat Kohli's place at no. 4.

Post Kohli's retirement last month, there were speculations on who would would fill the massive shoes at the position. It has been a spot held by of bearing the responsibility of playing at number four, a spot that belonged to the legendary Sachin Tendulkar before Kohli.


"I think there is still discussion going on, who's going to play three, but definitely four and five are fixed. I think Shubman is going to bat at number four, and I am going to stick to number five as of now, and the rest, we are going to keep on discussing that," Pant said during a press conference on Wednesday.

The bowling department will be led by Jasprit Bumrah, with Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna and Shardul Thakur for support. The spin department would be handled by experieced Ravindra Jadeja. Kuldeep Yadav might get a spot in place of one of the pacers.

The Ben Stokes-led England have already announced the playing 11. The team is without key bowlers such as Mark Wood, Gus Atkinson and Jofra Archer. Their batting, however, is a well settled unit.

India predicted playing 11

Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Karun Nair, Shubman Gill (c), Rishabh Pant (vc & wk), Dhruv Jurel, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj, Jasprit Bumrah, Prasidh Krishna.

England announced playing 11

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