England vs India: Shubman Gill likely to be ruled out of the first Test

The five-match Test series between England and India is still more than a month away. But the visitors have been struck with a telling blow as their young opener Shubman Gill is likely to be ruled out of the first Test. He is understood to have been injured and given the seriousness of the injury, Gill might even get ruled out of the whole series.

India have backed the 21-year-old at the top of the order ever since he made his Test debut on the Australia tour. Despite diminishing returns in the England Tests at home and then in the WTC Final against New Zealand, Shubman Gill looked set to open the innings in August at Trent Bridge as well.

However, according to Cricbuzz, the opening batsman is believed to be carrying a serious internal injury and that is likely to keep him on the sidelines possibly for a considerable period of time. The exact nature of injury is still not known but it is expected to keep him away from action for at least the first Test or even the whole series against England.

Gill to remain with the squad

As of now, it is understood that Shubman Gill will continue to remain with the Indian team. The management seems to be hopeful of bringing him back into the mix some time during the Test series. Team India need not worry though about opening options available.

They have picked a huge squad and the natural openers in Mayank Agarwal and KL Rahul will be readily available to open alongside Rohit Sharma. Mayank was dropped during the Australia tour and since then, Gill was preferred ahead of him. He even batted in the middle order in the Gabba Test with a lot of injury concerns in the camp.

Team India is currently enjoying a break ahead of a long series and the squad will reach Durham for a pre-series camp in a couple of weeks. The reporting day for the players for the camp is July 14 even as the BCCI has requested the ECB to organise at least a four-day practice for the visitors with the County team. It will be interesting to see if the the hosts board manages to accommodate the game with so much going on in the UK.