Gambhir to fly back for Headingley test on Tuesday

Gautam Gambhir is set to fly back to Leeds after a family emergency prompted him to return home. He will join the Indian team on Tuesday before the series opener against England starts on Friday

New Delhi: India head coach Gautam Gambhir is all set to rejoin the rest of the touring team in Leeds on Tuesday ahead of the series opener against England, starting on Friday.

Last week, Gambhir had flown back to New Delhi due to a family emergency related to his mother’s health, which required hospitalization. Now sources aware of the development told IANS that Gambhir will definitely be reaching England before the first Test, and most probably on Tuesday, the day when Indian team will reach Leeds after having a day off on Monday.

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The Indian team had been stationed in Beckenham to play an intra-squad game, held between the main Test team and India ‘A’ team, led by Abhimanyu Easwaran and coached by Hrishikesh Kanitkar. The match was played behind closed doors, with updates on it shared by BCCI’s social media accounts.

In Gambhir’s absence, batting coach Sitanshu Kotak, bowling coach Morne Morkel, assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate and fielding coach T Dilip helped the Indian team prepare for the upcoming Test series against Ben Stokes-led England, which starts at Headingley.

Around the time when the intra-squad game was on, visuals of VVS Laxman, the former India cricketer and head of BCCI Centre of Excellence (CoE), being around the team surfaced. It raised some curiosity as Laxman being with the Indian team coincided with Gambhir flying back to be with his family in New Delhi.

But sources told IANS that Laxman meeting Indian team was always a part of his itinerary, as he was slated to be in England for only two days, after being in Lausanne, Switzerland, for a function related to the Olympics.

Once back in Leeds, Gambhir and the Indian team think-tank have a lot of decisions to make in terms of playing eleven’s make-up – like deciding which three Tests Jasprit Bumrah will play, who would bat at number three and four – with B Sai Sudharsan, Karun Nair, Dhruv Jurel and Abhimanyu Easwaran the contenders.

There’s also a toss-up between the two seam-bowling all rounders in Nitish Kumar Reddy and Shardul Thakur, as well as in deciding who between Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna and Akash Deep would be the third fast-bowling option after Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj.

India, captained by Shubman Gill, are aiming to win a Test series in England for the first time since 2007. The five-match Test series in England will also be India’s first assignment in the 2025-27 World Test Championship cycle.