England tour of India

IND vs. ENG, 3rd Test

Preview

India will lock horns with England for the third test of the five-match series starting on Thursday, February 15. Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot will host the match. 

The series is drawn at 1-1 after India won by a margin of 106 runs in the 2nd Test match at Visakhapatnam while England managed a win in the first Test match at Hyderabad by 28 runs. 

Virat Kohli has made himself unavailable for the entire Test series against England. KL Rahul was named in the squad for the third Test but will be missing out on the Playing XI citing a quadriceps injury. Also, while Ravindra Jadeja looks fit to play at his home ground, Shreyas Iyer will likely get dropped. 

The Indian management added Akash Deep to the Indian squad just ahead of the series. Also, the services of Rajat Patidar, Washington Sundar and Sarfaraz Khan have retained their places in the squad while Devdutt Padikkal has been a new addition to replace KL Rahul in the third Test. 

Rehan Ahmed who earlier faced a visa issue has now been allowed into the country and is available for selection.

Match Details

Match: ENG tour of IND 2024, IND vs ENG, 3rd Test

Date: Thursday, February 15, 2024 - Monday, February 19, 2024

Time: 09:30 AM

Venue: Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Rajkot

Pitch and Weather Report

Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium offers a surface that will greatly assist the bowlers, the spinners to be specific. The batters would look forward to scoring as many runs as possible in the first innings of the match as getting runs becomes a lot tougher when the game progresses. Skipper winning the toss will prefer to bat first and the first innings score will be 295 depending on the conditions. 

There is no chance of rain in Rajkot on Thursday, February 15. The humidity will stay at 30% and the temperature will be somewhere around 34 degrees Celsius. Also, similar weather is predicted throughout the five match days.

IND vs. ENG Squads

IND: Rohit Sharma (c), Srikar Bharat (wk), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mukesh Kumar, Mohammed Siraj, Ravindra Jadeja, Sarfaraz Khan, Washington Sundar, Dhruv Jurel, Akash Deep

ENG: Ben Stokes (c), Ben Foakes (wk), Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Rehan Ahmed, Tom Hartley, James Anderson, Shoaib Bashir, Mark Wood, Ollie Robinson, Daniel Lawrence, Gus Atkinson

IND vs. ENG Probable Playing XIs

IND: Rohit Sharma (C), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Sarfaraz Khan, Rajat Patidar, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj 

ENG: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes (C), Ben Foakes, Rehan Ahmed, Tom Hartley, Shoaib Bashir, Ollie Robinson

Match Prediction

England appears to have a more strong and experienced batting side when compared to that of the Indian side. The Men in Blue on the other side have a blazing bowling order. This is the reason we fancy the Indian cricket team to win this match and clinch the series 2-1. 

Suggested Playing XI Real11 Fantasy Cricket

Team 1

Team 2