India will be without the services of their star player, Virat Kohli for the all-important tour of England. The former India captain quit red-ball cricket before the team selection for the series. Virat played a Ranji Trophy game after the 2024/25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy and looked set to tour England. But he shocked the cricketing fraternity with his retirement announcement.

Before the start of the England tour, Sachin Tendulkar reacted to Virat's Test retirement. Speaking to BBC Sports, the Master Blaster said: "It's a personal decision. So you know it is easy for an outsider to just pass a loose comment and say, then OK, he shouldn't have done whatever that maybe. But An individual understands the state of mind, how the body is responding to the longer format of the game. And it's a personal decision, so it wouldn't be right for me to, you know, make any comment on that."

Virat had quit T20I cricket after winning the 2024 World Cup and he is now only active in ODI cricket. A week before Virat's retirement, Rohit Sharma also quit Test cricket.

Rohit captained India on the Australia tour. He dropped himself for the fifth Test but confirmed that he would continue to play Tests. Rohit will continue to lead the ODI team till the 2027 World Cup.

India captain Shubman Gill will replace Virat Kohli at number 4. Rishabh Pant, his deputy, will follow him in the batting order. "After Virat bhai retired, me and GG bhai (Gautam Gambhir) had a discussion about it and we were both clear that he wanted me to be at number four and I was also clear that I also wanted to be at that number," he said on the eve of the series opener. India haven't won a Test series in England since 2007.

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