Home
The Indian team is set to play a five-match Test series against England which is set to commence from June 20. The series will also mark the beginning of the new World Test Championship (WTC) cycle so it will be quite important for both the teams. Ahead of the commencement of the series, a report in bbc.com has stated that the England vs India Test series will now be named as the Tendulkar-Anderson Trophy.
Both Tendulkar and Anderson are legends of the game
The legendary Sachin Tendulkar is the highest-scorer in Test cricket history with 15,921 runs under his name in 200 Tests. On the other hand, James Anderson is also nothing short of a legend, racking up a total of 704 Test wickets in 188 matches.
Earlier, the bilateral series between England vs India was regarded as the Pataudi Trophy and was first awarded in the year 2007. The trophy was given the name in order to celebrate 75 years of the first Test between the two nations.
When the series between the two is played in India, it is known as the Anthony de Mello Trophy, which is named after a former President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
Earlier, former India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar had brutally criticized the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) for the decision of retiring the name of the Patudi Trophy.
"The recent news that the ECB is going to retire the Pataudi Trophy, given to the winners of the Test series between England and India in England, is disturbing indeed. This is the first time one has heard of a trophy named after individual players being retired, though the decision is entirely the ECB's, and the BCCI may well have been informed. It shows a total lack of sensitivity to the contribution made by the Pataudis to cricket in both England and India," Gavaskar wrote in a column for Sportstar.
"There may well be a new trophy named after more recent players, and here's hoping that if an Indian player has been approached, he will have the good sense to politely decline - not only out of respect for two former India captains but also to avoid the same fate of having a trophy named after him retired after he is gone. The ECB is fully entitled to name the trophy after one of their own players, but I, along with loads of Indian cricket supporters, fervently hope that any other Indian cricketer will have the smarts to decline, lest history repeats itself as it has with the Pataudi Trophy," he added.
The upcoming assignment against England will be a massive test for the Indian team, who will be without the services of both Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, both of whom recently announced their retirements from the longest format. The tour will come as a major opportunity for the youngsters, who will be looking to impress the selectors through their performance and cement their place in the Men in Blue's Test playing XI.
India squad for England series: Shubman Gill (C), Rishabh Pant (VC & WK), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav
ADVERTISEMENT
