Pujara, Pant, Prasidh and Bumrah to play for Leicestershire in the practice match

The visiting Indian squad will be playing a practice match at the Uptonsteel County Ground on 23rd June, Thursday. The Men in Blue will be taking on the Leicestershire County Cricket Club (LCCC) in a four-day practice match before the conclusion of the test series at Edgbaston. Despite rumours of a covid outbreak in the Indian team, everyone did turn up for a net practice session on 22nd June. Captain Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari, Jasprit Bumrah, and Shardul Thakur are among the players who extensively practised on Wednesday (22nd June) morning. 

Although Kohli was absent from the practice session and certain sources labelled him to be affected by COVID-19, team sources cleared that there is no Covid case in the camp and every player is available for selection except Ravi Ashwin, who’s expected to join the squad soon. 

Some Indian players namely Cheteshwar Pujara, Rishabh Pant, Jasprit Bumrah and Prasidh Krishna have been drafted to the rival LCCC squad. They all will play under county skipper Sam Evans in the practice match mainly arranged by the Indian Cricket Board, England Cricket Council and the Leicester County Cricket Club. The arrangement will emphasise on the better practice of the Indian players before their final test against the England Cricket Team from 1st July at Edgbaston, which is the postponed fifth test match of the series held last year and cancelled due to COVID-19 outbreak in the Indian camp. India are currently leading the series 2-1 and are awaiting for a historic feat under the leadership of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. All they need to do is get a favourable result in the final test.

India: Rohit Sharma (Capt), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari, KS Bharat (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav.

Leicestershire CCC: Sam Evans (Capt), Rehan Ahmed, Sam Bates (wk), Nat Bowley, Will Davis, Joey Evison, Louis Kimber, Abi Sakande, Roman Walker, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rishabh Pant, Jasprit Bumrah and Prasidh Krishna.