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Team India is locking horns with England in a five-match Test series, hoping to end their 18-year wait to win a series on the English soil. After days of practice, the first Test commenced on Friday, June 20 at Headingley, Leeds. For the unversed, Ben Stokes won the toss and elected to bowl first.
His decision came seeing a good wicket at Headingley. “We'll bowl. Headingley is a very good cricket wicket, we've had some really good games here,” Stokes said at toss. Later on, the two team players were also seen donning black armbands as a mark of tribute to the lives lost in Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad.
Players wear black armbands as mark of respect for Air India plane crash
Just minutes after the toss, the England Cricket shared an update on the black armbands, which read, “Both teams will wear black armbands today as a mark of respect for those who lost their lives in the Air India plane crash. Out thoughts are with all those affected by the terrible events that took place in Ahmedabad last week �� ”.
Players of England and India also observed a minute of silence in remembrance of the victims of the plane crash in Ahmedabad, which saw loss of 241 lives, along with a few more of the medical college last week.
England vs India first Test Playing XI
England: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes(c), Jamie Smith(w), Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue, Shoaib Bashir
India: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill(c), Rishabh Pant(w), Karun Nair, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna
