India will begin their campaign in the World Test Championship (WTC) 2025-27 as they take on England in a five-match Test Series, with the first match taking place from June 20 at Headingley, Leeds. India will be fielding a young side led by Shubman Gill, with both Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli retiring just a month prior to the start of the series. It will be a huge task for Gautam Gambhir, who has not had a great time in Tests since becoming the head coach. He is now set to take a massive step in preparation for the crucial series.

According to a report by PTI, Gautam Gambhir wants the final warm-up game before the start of the series, which is an intra-squad match between India and India A, to be played behind closed doors. This is to prevent the opposition to gain any tactical advantage for the series.

India took a similar approach before the start of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia in December 2024.

The final intra-squad game will give the bowlers a chance to get a full action of 360 overs across the four days. The match, according to the PTI report, will also hint at the possible batting order, with the retirements of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.

The focus will also be on Jasprit Bumrah to arrive to full fitness, after he was ruled out of playing cricket for a number of months due to the back injury he suffered in Australia. he recently returned to action in the IPL 2025. Bumrah is expected to play three or four out of the five Test matches of the series owing to workload management issues.

Shubman Gill (C), Rishabh Pant (VC & WK), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav

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