Pacer Gus Atkinson missed out with injury while Jamie Overton returned to the side as England announced the 14-member squad for the first Test against India in Headingley. Atkinson recently sustained a right hamstring injury during England’s one-off Test against Zimbabwe at Trent Bridge recently.
Meanwhile, Overton returned to the Test side for the first time since making his only red-ball appearance against New Zealand at Headingley in 2022. It is also to be noted that has sustained a broken right little finger during the ODI against the West Indies on May 29 and continues to be under observation by the England medical team.
Having last featured during the Test tour of New Zealand in December, seamer Brydon Carse, Jacob Bethell and Chris Woakes were also named in the squad for the first Test. The India A side are already in the United Kingdom, playing warm-up games against England Lions.
England squad for 1st Test against India
Ben Stokes (Captain), Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook, Brydon Carse, Sam Cook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Jamie Overton, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jamie Smith, Josh Tongue, Chris Woakes
India squad Test series against England
Shubman Gill (C), Rishabh Pant, Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel, Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav
In the one-off Test against Zimbabwe, England won by an innings and 45 runs. Batting first, England declared at 565/6 with Zak Crawley (124), Ben Duckett (140) and Ollie Pope (171) all slamming daddy hundreds.
In reply, Zimbabwe rode on Brian Bennett’s 139 to post 265 all out in the first innings before being followed-on. In the second innings, Zimbabwe were all out for 255.
