India vs England 2025 Strongest Possible Test Series Playing 11
Shubman Gill to Captain a vibrant side in our India vs England 2025 Test series strongest possible playing 11 for the Indian team.
The Indian Premier League fever is finally over, and it’s now time for the Shubman Gill and Gautam Gambhir era of the Indian Test Team to begin. The duo will be gearing up for their toughest challenge just at the start of their leadership career, the England Away Test series. Five away Tests of the WTC 2025-27 cycle awaits the Indian team, and Shubman Gill has not only his Captaincy, but also his batting to focus on.
After a long time in Indian Test history, we are seeing a Captain, who was only recently dropped from the Test Team, but is now being given the responsibility to lead the team. There are huge challenges ahead of Shubman Gill, and more than Captaincy, it is his batting that will face the major heat. Yes, Gill may get away with his Captaincy blunders early on in his Captaincy career. But his below-par outing in Away Tests will face a major hit. Another failed series with the bat, and questions will be raised about everyone who made Shubman Gill, the Test Captain.
Aside from his Captaincy, Shubman Gill will also be facing a major challenge with regard to the team composition. While winning a Test match in England itself is a major challenge even with the most experienced players, Shubman Gill-led Team India is majorly inexperienced from that perspective. Aside from Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant to some extent, other players are inexperienced, and that will increase the difficulty level even further. It will be interesting to see how Shubman Gill and Gautam Gambhir cope with this challenge.
India vs England 2025 Official Test Squad and Players List for Indian Team
Batters: Abhimanyu Easwaran, KL Rahul, Karun Nair, Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill (c) & Yashasvi Jaiswal
Wicket-keepers: Dhruv Jurel & Rishabh Pant (vc)
All-rounders: Nitish Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja & Washington Sundar
Bowlers: Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna & Shardul Thakur
On top of this, Team India will be without the four biggest stalwarts of the Indian cricket team, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin and Mohammed Shami. With four big players missing, and India coming off two back-to-back huge Test series losses, how will the new Indian Test team cope with the most difficult challenge of the WTC 2025-27 cycle? It will be interesting to see, but before that, let’s look at the strongest playing 11 that Team India will select for the 2025 Test series vs England.
Strongest Playing 11 Explained
The first question that Team India will have is the selection of openers. With Rohit Sharma not there, who will open alongside Yashasvi Jaiswal will be the key question for the management. Team India have three options to decide, and those are KL Rahul, Abhimanyu Easwaran, and Sai Sudharsan. But most likely, India will opt for stable openers in the form of KL Rahul to support Yashasvi Jaiswal. The duo had also opened in the absence of Rohit Sharma, so we can continue to expect them to open in this series as well.
The middle-order will see a big change this time with Virat Kohli not there. With Virat Kohli not there, expect Shubman Gill to donn a new role at the number 4 position. Gill has technical challenges in his batting, and more than number 3, Gill will be able to adapt better in the number 4 position. With Gill at 4 instead of 3, India need a solid technical batter at the number 3 position, and looking at the options, Sai Sudharsan feels the right bet for this position. Sai is technically perfect, and can handle the moving ball quite easily. He gets into the position very quickly, and plays the ball late. This will help him be more successful if the ball is moving.
Lower-order
Coming to the lower-order, India will once again have a change, and we should once again see Karun Nair nicely sandwiched between Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja. Karun Nair is making a return to test Cricket after a long gap of more than 8 years. With a successful Domestic season, and some solid batting for India A, we can see Karun Nair batting at 6 with Rishabh Pant at 5 and Ravindra Jadeja at 7. If not Karun, India may continue with Dhruv Jurel for now.
Now, coming to the most important part, the bowling lineup. Team India have a spinner in the form of Ravindra Jadeja, so they may not need Sundar or Kuldeep in the team. So, the question remains whether India goes ahead with 4 Frontline pacers, or 3 Frontline pacers a pace All-rounder. This is a big call that the Indian team will have to make. Under Virat Kohli, India had been selecting four Frontline pacers. But it looks improbable that India will go ahead with such a combination. So, expect India to select 3 Frontline pacers and 1 Pace All-rounder as the ideal combination for the Test series.
In terms of the Pacers, India will see Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, and Prasidh Krishna as the three frontline pacers in the starting 11. These three had also played the last Test match vs Australia, and Prasidh Krishna was impressed with his bowling too. So, expect Prasidh Krishna, Bumrah, and Siraj to lead the pace duties for the team. For the Pace All-rounder, expect India to go ahead with Nitish Reddy ahead of Shardul Thakur, purely to add more batting depth to cover this inexperienced batting lineup. Nitish can be a handy bowler too, and jump in as a filler when key pacers need rest.
India vs England 2025 Strongest Test Series Playing 11
- Yashasvi Jaiswal
- KL Rahul
- Sai Sudharsan
- Shubman Gill (c)
- Rishabh Pant (wk)
- Karun Nair
- Ravindra Jadeja
- Nitish Reddy
- Jasprit Bumrah
- Mohammed Siraj
- Prasidh Krishna
So, that’s about the strongest playing 11 for Team India for the 2025 Test series vs England. The Test series begins on June 20, and the first Test shall be played at Leeds. The Indian team has already reached England, and will be beginning the tour with a practice match. As the team prepares for the Test series, here’s the complete Test series schedule for the tour.
India vs England 2025 Official Test Series Schedule Details
- 1st Test Match, June 20-24 @ Leeds, 3:30 pm IST
- 2nd Test Match, July 02-06 @ Birmingham, 3:30 pm IST
- 3rd Test Match, July 10-14 @ Lord’s, 3:30 pm IST
- 4th Test Match, July 23-27 @ Manchester, 3:30 pm IST
- 5th Test Match, July 31 – August 04 @ The Oval, 3:30 pm IST
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