Gambhir to rejoin India squad in Leeds on Tuesday

Gautam Gambhir, India's head coach, will rejoin the rest of the squad in Leeds on Tuesday ahead of the first England vs India Test match that starts on Friday.

Gambhir had flown back home, to Delhi, on June 11 after his mother was hospitalised, and wasn't around when the senior India team and the touring India A side took part in a three-day game in Beckenham. It is understood that her health has improved since.

In Gambhir's absence, Ryan ten Doeschate and Sitanshu Kotak, the assistant coaches, and Morne Morkel, the bowling coach, oversaw the team's prep, with Hrishikesh Kanitkar, the India A coach, with them. The game in Beckenham was played behind closed doors.

Speaking about the game itself and the preparations in general, Morkel mentioned in an interview to bcci.tv, "There's some quality energy in this group and, you know, that's what you need. You need to go into a Test series confident, you need to have that team spirit in the group and I think so far they have done a great job."

Later, after the game was over on Sunday, Kuldeep Yadav stressed on the importance of "volume" of overs for the bowlers in the group, who had only played T20 cricket - for over two months, at the IPL - in the lead up to the five-Test series.

"We've played a lot of T20 in the last four-five months, so volume is very important," Kuldeep told bcci.tv. "All the bowlers are instructed to bowl as many overs [in practice as they would in a match]: the fast bowlers will bowl at least 15 to 20 overs so they can build up fully for the Test match, and it's the same for the spinners - the more they bowl, the better it will be."

With Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli now retired from Test cricket, Shubman Gill has been made the new Test captain, and he got Kuldeep's vote of confidence after the tour game: "I have seen over the last three-four sessions that Shubman has the same qualities that I've seen in our previous leadership groups. He's fully ready to lead us."

Once back, from the point of view of the first Test, Gambhir will have to take some quick decisions along with the rest of the team management on the make-up of the playing XI. It has been known for a while that Jasprit Bumrah will play only three of the five Tests to manage his workload, though it's not known which three those will be.

That aside, B Sai Sudharsan, uncapped at this level, and the returning Karun Nair are among the contenders to fill the Rohit and Kohli vacancies. Nair scored a double-century for India A against England Lions earlier on the tour, while the likes of Dhruv Jurel and Abhimanyu Easwaran have also been among the runs.

There is also likely to be a toss-up between the two seam-bowling allrounders, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Shardul Thakur, with neither showing great form in their India A appearances.