India’s tour of England begins on June 20 at Leeds, with Shubman Gill leading the Indian team and Rishabh Pant appointed as vice-captain. Shreyas Iyer has been named in the 18-man squad. Head coach Gautam Gambhir addressed the media ahead of the series. He commented on Shreyas Iyer and also welcomed the BCCI’s initiative to honour Indian military officials during the IPL 2025 closing ceremony.
Gambhir Responds to Iyer’s Test Snub,
When asked about the selection committee excluding the in-form Iyer from the playing XI for the England tour, Gambhir responded, “I'm not a selector,” choosing not to elaborate further. Chief selector Ajit Agarkar had previously explained the decision, stating that there was simply no space for Iyer in the current Test setup.
"Shreyas had a good one-day series and performed well in domestic cricket as well, but right now there is no room in Test cricket,” Agarkar said.
Also read: India Tour of England: Check out players who missed out on squad selection
BCCI’s Tribute to Armed Forces Highlighted
Gambhir also praised the BCCI’s tribute to military officials involved in Operation Sindoor. He especially acknowledged Devajit Sakaria’s role in inviting the top three service chiefs to attend the ceremony.
"We normally criticise the BCCI a lot on a lot of things, but this is unbelievable. BCCI has taken an initiative from the point of view that the entire nation is one and the entire nation has to salute the armed forces for what they do unconditionally," he said.
"So I feel that with the BCCI taking such an initiative, we have got to give a lot of credit to the BCCI and more importantly to our armed forces who have been unconditionally helping and saving us and protecting us." General Upendra Dwivedi is the Chief of Army Staff, Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi is the Naval Chief, and Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh is the Chief of Air Staff.
India Test Squad For England Series
Shubman Gill (c), Rishabh Pant (wk/vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav.
