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With the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 nearing its business end, the Men in Blue will be preparing for the highly-anticipated England tour, beginning with India A’s matches against England Lions. However, the first four-day match is set to be played from May 30 till June 2 in Cantebury, the second match is scheduled to be played from June 6 to 9 in Northampton.
But ahead of the series, the Men in Blue have been handed a massive setback as they might miss the services of India’s newly-appointed Test captain, Shubman Gill. Gill, who was set to join the team ahead of the second first-class match, along with his Gujarat Titans teammate, Sai Sudharsan, is likely to miss the match due to his IPL commitments.
Shubman Gill unlikely to be available for second warm-up match against England Lions
With Gujarat Titans finishing at third place in the IPL 2025 standings, they are scheduled to play Mumbai Indians in the Eliminator on May 30. If they win, they might face the winner of Punjab Kings versus Royal Challengers Bengaluru on June 1 in Qualifier 2, followed by the final, scheduled for June 3. Seeing this, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) does not want to rush Gill into the warm-up match.
Reports citing The Indian Express have stated that head coach Gautam Gambhir has decided to give rest to Gill after a demanding IPL 2025 season. Besides, Gill is likely to get a chance to play an intra-squad match, starting June 13 to prepare for the Test series if he doesn’t feature in the warm-up games. However, it has to be seen if the BCCI will take a similar stance for Sai Sudharsan, who is Gill’s teammate in GT.
India A squad for England tour
Abhimanyu Easwaran (C), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Karun Nair, Dhruv Jurel (VC) (WK), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shardul Thakur, Ishan Kishan (WK), Manav Suthar, Tanush Kotian, Mukesh Kumar, Akash Deep, Harshit Rana, Anshul Kamboj, Khaleel Ahmed, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Sarfaraz Khan, Tushar Deshpande, Harsh Dubey
Note: Shubman Gill and Sai Sudharsan will join the squad ahead of the second match.
