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Bumrah rested; Washington, Reddy, Akash Deep in for India after England bowl

Gill confirmed Bumrah will play at Lord's next week as India left out Thakur and Sai Sudharsan

ESPNcricinfo staff
02-Jul-2025 • 13 hrs ago
Ben Stokes and Shubman Gill at toss, England vs India, 2nd Test, Birmingham, Day 2, July 2, 2025

Ben Stokes and Shubman Gill at toss at Edgbaston  •  Getty Images

Ben Stokes has won the toss and opted to bowl first at Edgbaston, as England seek to exploit whatever movement there is on this Edgbaston surface to steal a march on India in the second Test, after taking a 1-0 lead at Headingley.
The headline news is that Jasprit Bumrah sits out, ensuring he still has two Tests in the chamber to be used in the final three matches from Lord's onwards. His resting is one of three changes for India, with Akash Deep, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Washington Sundar drafted into the XI.
Those changes give India a decidedly different feel from the one that suffered the defeat at Headingley, with B Sai Sudharsan and Shadrul Thakur dropped. Karun Nair will bat at No.3.
Explaining the decision to rest Bumrah, Shubman Gill revealed the India management felt Lord's will offer Bumrah more than this track.
"We did get a good break… but the third match of the series being at Lord's, there might be a little bit more in the wicket so we thought we'd play him in the third one," said Gill.
While confirming he would have also opted to bowl first, Gill revealed Kuldeep Yadav came close to selection, only for Washington to get the nod because of his superior batting. Boosting the tail after numbers eight to 11 scored nine runs between them across both innings of the first Test was a priority.
"We were very tempted to play him (Kuldeep). But looking at the last match, the lower order did not score many runs," Gill said.
All the intrigue over the last 48 hours was very much focussed on India after Stokes named an unchanged XI on Monday. The last time England fielded same XI across the first two Test matches of a home series was in 2017 against South Africa.
Victory for the hosts would increase their superiority over India at Edgbaston. They have won seven out of eight meetings here, with one draw.
England: 1 Zak Crawley, 2 Ben Duckett, 3 Ollie Pope, 4 Joe Root, 5 Harry Brook, 6 Ben Stokes (capt), 7 Jamie Smith (wk), 8 Chris Woakes, 9 Brydon Carse, 10 Josh Tongue, 11 Shoaib Bashir
India: 1 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2 KL Rahul, 3 Karun Nair, 4 Shubman Gill (capt), 5 Rishabh Pant (wk), 6 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Washington Sundar, 9 Akash Deep, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Prasidh Krishna