The Indian team is set to play an intra-squad match against India A at Beckenham in Kent ahead of the beginning of their five-match Test assignment against England. The match is set to commence from June 13 and is quite anticipated as it will be the Men in Blue's only warm-up game before their series against the Three Lions begins.
The intra-squad match will be a closed-door affair
However, there is a bad news for Indian supporters as the intra-squad match will nether be broadcasted nor get livestreamed on any platform. This is due to the fact that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the Indian team management have decided to ban media personnel and broadcasters from the warm-up game.
Despite the recent Test matches between India A and England Lions getting streamed live on JioHotstar, the BCCI surprisingly decided to keep the intra-squad game as a closed-door affair.
It is not like that the Indian team haven't participated in closed-door sessions before. The squad had a couple of practice sessions during the Border-Gavaskar series 2024/25 where the media was completely barred.
'Closed Intra squad game. No vision access to Media/Broadcast. On the final day of the squad game, a player/member of support staff will be made available to the media," BCCI said in a statement.
Meanwhile, both the Tests between India A and England Lions ended in draws. Batters mostly dominated throughout the two matches and veteran batter Karun Nair, who returned to India's Test set-up after eight long years for the upcoming England Tests, scored a magnificent double-century in the first Test.
Notably, eight players that featured for India A during the second practice Test against the England Lions, are part of the main 18-member squad that the Indian selection committee picked for the England Test series. Among them, the most prominent players are KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal. Other names include Karun Nair, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Dhruv Jurel, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shardul Thakur and Akash Deep.