BIRMINGHAM: England have won the toss and opted to bowl first against India in the second Test of the five-match series here at Edgbaston on Wednesday.
England skipper Ben Stokes decided to bowl at a dry surface in a bid to exploit whatever moment the pitch has.
Meanwhile, the visitors have made three changes from their previous outing, with ace pacer Jasprit Bumrah not featuring in the India XI.
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Shubman Gill has gone with a two-spinners’ strategy with Washington Sundar drafted into the XI along with pacer Akash Deep and all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy.
Among the omissions are Sai Sudharshan and Shardul Thakur, while Karun Nair will bat at No. 03.
Skipper Shubman Gill revealed the reason behind excluding Jasprit Bumrah from the playing XI.
“We did get a good break… but the third match of the series being at Lord’s, there might be a little bit more in the wicket, so we thought we’d play him in the third one,” said Gill.
It is pertinent to mention that the last time England fielded an unchanged XI across the first two Test matches of a home series was way back in 2017 against South Africa.
England Playing XI
Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (c), Jamie Smith, Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue, and Shoaib Bashir.
India Playing XI
Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Karun Nair, Shubman Gill (c), Rishabh Pant, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, and Prasidh Krishna.