England opt to bowl as India prefer Shardul over Ashwin

Birmingham: England captain Ben Stokes won the toss and elected to bowl against India in the rescheduled fifth Test, starting here Friday.

With skipper Rohit Sharma ruled out after testing positive for Covid-19, Jasprit Bumrah will be India’s 36th Test captain. Shubman Gill is the only specialist opener while Shardul Thakur as seamer all-rounder has been preferred over veteran off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin.

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Teams

India: Jasprit Bumrah (captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj,

England: Alex Lees, Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes (captain), Sam Billings, Matthew Potts, Stuart Broad, Jack Leach, James Anderson.