Battle lines drawn as India, Eng gear up for Test series

A fresh chapter in India-England Test rivalry begins today at Headingley as young Shubman Gill leads a transitioning Indian side against Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes’ fearless England, in the inaugural contest of the newly-instituted Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy.

- STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE

With the stalwarts of Indian cricket—Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, retiring from the longest format last month, India enters the five-Test series with a youthful core and a new leadership group. Gill, the 25-year-old appointed as India’s 37th Test captain, faces his toughest test yet, both as leader and as a batter, in a country where India has managed just three Test series wins (1971, 1986, 2007) in nine decades.

Despite the absence of Kohli and Rohit Sharma, who played his best Test cricket in the 2021 series, this could be India’s best chance to put pressure on an English bowling line-up that wouldn’t have the quality that James Anderson and Stuart Broad brought for two decades. An attack comprising Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue and Shoaib Bashir with skipper Stokes to complement them doesn’t exactly strike fear in the opposition ranks.