Nitish vs Sharadul, No Arshdeep

India cricket team will start their World Test Championship 2025/27 cycle on England in 1 Test in Handingley, Leeds on 20 June. The series will mark the beginning of a new era for men in Blue under the captaincy of Shubman Gill following the departure of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. Gill and Gambhir have got a lot of time to think about their playing XI for 1 test, but still some selections are facing headaches.

Proportor to play xi for 1 test

On the bench: Arshdeep Singh, Dhruv Juraral, Abhimanyu Ishwaran, Shardul Thakur, Akash Deep, Sai Sudharaman, Harshit Rana, Washington Sundar

Nitish to Pip Shardul?

Nitish Kumar Reddy is likely to be selected at the playing XI for 1 Test before Sharadul Thakur. The two all -rounders tasted a bit of success, both bat and ball, with a series against England’s Lions in India.

In two informal trials, Reddy scored a half -century and took two wickets. On the other hand, Thakur also took some wickets and recorded the highest score of 34. In the practice match between India A and India, Shardul managed to score an unbeaten 122-r-r-knock and was one of the wickets who were able to take out some movements from the surface.

While Thakur can certainly come as a boost for India’s bowling attack, the team is expected to like Nitish instead of strengthening his batting. Do not make any mistake, Shardul is not a stranger to bat in England. He has three of the four tests that he has played in England so far with the previous one in 2023.

The series against England will be the first time Nitish will play in the UK. He first made his debut in the series against Australia and also made a gritty.

Therefore, this form can not be the experience that will determine whether Nitish or Shardul will make it in the playing XI. Instead, it will depend on whether India wants to focus on being a batsman, who can bowl instead of another way to make a deep batting line-up.

Krishna, Arshadeep Out

India’s speed attack will be given by his best bowler Jasprit Bumrah. Siraj, the second highest bowler in the last calendar year, will play the second Fidel. For the third pace, Prasad Krishna is expected to cut further from Arshdeep Singh, which means Southpow will have to wait for his Test debut.

Krishna has recently been as his life, which has ended as the highest wicket -taker in IPL 2025. In his final test (against Australia in Sydney), he finished with 6 wickets in his name despite almost a year making a test appearance.

On the other hand, Arshdeep can be very useful for India as he can get the ball to swing in both ways. However, Krishna is more experienced in playing red-ball cricket and is therefore expected to be selected in the XI to play Arshadeep.

Top six in focus

KL Rahul is likely to change Rohit Sharma as India’s new opener in Tests. After all, he is not a stranger to bat in that situation and tasted success while batting at the top of the order. This will be important for Jaiswal and to not expose the middle-order in the game to click it collectively.

Captain Gill will continue at number 3, while Karun Nair, who makes his comeback after 7 years, will be India’s new number 4 in place of Virat Kohli. Rishabh Pant will come in five and will be followed by Nitish and Jadeja.