Former Indian cricket team spinner R Ashwin’s wife Prithi Narayanan posted a cryptic message on social media ahead of Day 1 of the first Test encounter against England on Friday. This was the first time that India was playing a Test series without the illustrious trio of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ashwin. While Ashwin retired mid-way into the Test series against Australia, both Kohli and Rohit announced their retirement ahead of the five-match Test series against England. As a result, it was a somewhat new-look India side that took the pitch against England with Sai Sudharsan becoming the latest debutant. Prithi took to social media to post a message that echoed the emotion felt by many cricket fans  as she wrote on her Instagram story – “Test match day for India, and I woke up with many mixed feelings. Have to find a different way to love it and unlearn the only way I knew to”.

India have handed B Sai Sudharsan his Test debut as England won the toss and elected to bowl in the first Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy Test at Headingley on Friday. The five-match series also marks the start of a new World Test Championship cycle for both India and England.

Sudharsan, who represents Tamil Nadu in domestic cricket, has played in the County Championship for Surrey, and will make his Test debut on June 20, a day where Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly (both 1996) and Virat Kohli (2011) made their entry into the longer format for India.

He becomes India’s 317th men’s Test cricketer and will bat at number three in Leeds. Sudharsan got his cap from Cheteshwar Pujara, who is in England as a commentator for the series. Karun Nair will bat at number six, and marks a stupendous return to the Test team for the first time after March 2017.

Shardul Thakur is set to bat at number eight, in the seam-bowling all-rounder’s slot, after getting the nod over Nitish Kumar Reddy. Prasidh Krishna joins Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj in the fast-bowling attack and Ravindra Jadeja being the sole specialist spin-bowling all-rounder means there’s no space for Kuldeep Yadav.

The match in Leeds also marks Shubman Gill’s debut as India’s Test captain. “We’d have bowled first as well. It has been a dry summer, so although there might be a little bit in it in the first session, it’s going to be a really good batting wicket after that.”

“The sun is out; it looks like it’s going to be a good batting day for us. Preparation has been amazing. All the boys are feeling in a really good space mentally and physically,” he said.

England skipper Ben Stokes said the preparation for a crucial series against India has been mixed but they are now ‘raring to go’. “Headingley is generally a very good cricket wicket, we’ve had some great games here over the years and hopefully we can use the early conditions and get a bit out of it.”

“We’re all excited, we’re all ready to go. The preparation has been mixed, to be honest. We’ve had some lads playing county cricket, but we’ve had a really good three days building up to this Test match and everyone is raring to go,” he added.

Playing XIs

India: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill (captain), Rishabh Pant (vice-captain and wicket-keeper), Karun Nair, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, and Prasidh Krishna

England: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (captain), Jamie Smith (wicket-keeper), Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue, and Shoaib Bashir