England vs India: Score and latest updates from first Test at Headingley

Telegraph

5 hours ago

Latest updates
Kieran Crichard. Rob Bagchi live updates
20 June 2025 10:06am
10:06AM
Changing of the guard
India are on these shores without Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravi Ashwin but the team that has come is still full of superb talent; Jasprit Bumrah, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rishabh Pant, Shubman Gill amongst others. A little strange that we will see an India side without Kohli, Ashwin and Sharma.
10:04AM
'Sticking with Pope could hurt England's Ashes chances'
Picking Ollie Pope over Jacob Bethell to bat at No 3 against India is the fair call but that does not make it the right one.
There is a difference between the two and it threatens to haunt England as they stand on the cusp of a run of 10 Test matches that Rob Key, the director of cricket, admitted this week would be used to 'define this era'.
Ollie Pope scored 171 in his last innings when Bethell missed the Zimbabwe Test to play in the Indian Premier League, doing everything he could to keep his place when it looked as though a new kid had come along and taken to No 3 like a natural.
10:00AM
Team Telegraph descending on Headingley!
Greetings from Headingley. It's a scorcher here. Half of team Telegraph just walked in from the city centre, and have got a bit of a bead on (apologies for the over-share). A nice gift when we arrived at the press box, though, as Yorkshire have given every member of the media this lovely loaf cake from Bettys in Harrogate. We are easily bought...
It's muggy this morning. There's a thin layer of cloud overhead which I imagine will burn off. All the signs would suggest it's a batting day (look up not down etc), but I quite fancy England will want to chase. India might be thinking the same way, given the Bumrah factor.
9:59AM
England vs India series predictions
England 3 India 2
To win two Tests in England for an India side rebuilding their batting order would be a strong result for them, when you think they have not won a series in England since 2007.
England will win the series in the fourth Test, and lose at the Oval, therefore continuing the two steps forward, one step back hokey cokey that has become their way in the Bazball era.
Which one of our writers has this as his prediction for the series? You can find out right here with all the predictions from our experts.
9:55AM
Team already announced
As is customary for this England regime, they have already announced their team in advance of the first day of the Test:
Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope (vice-captain), Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (captain), Jamie Smith (wicketkeeper), Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue, Shoaib Bashir.
One of the biggest calls was at number three and whether it was Ollie Pope or Jacob Bethell. Pope has been given the nod and Stokes staunchly defended that call ahead of the game. In the seam attack England are missing a number of fast bowlers including Mark Wood, Jofra Archer and Gus Atkinson but Chris Woakes has a fine record in England and Brydon Carse made a very impressive start to life in Test cricket over the winter in Pakistan and New Zealand.
9:45AM
First of two huge series commences
Ben Stokes has promised England will temper their much-discussed, divisive Bazball style as they focus purely on winning across 10 legacy-defining Tests against India and Australia. The first of five Tests against India begins at Headingley today, before England travel to Australia for a hotly-anticipated crack at winning the Ashes for the first time since 2015.
Stokes has been captain for three years alongside coach Brendon McCullum, and has revolutionised the way England play Test cricket, prioritising an attacking style of play and largely enjoying good results. However they failed to win back the Ashes in 2023 (drawing 2-2 with Australia), then were well beaten (4-1) by India last year, making these two series crucial to an exciting era's legacy.
Stokes has spoken before about trying to take the result out of his thinking and prioritising entertainment, but now says that if England are to be seen as anything more than a 'good' team, they must respond better to pressure situations and fighter harder. Last year, they lost two matches by staggering margins of 434 runs (in Rajkot) and 323 runs (in Wellington).
Stokes said England's players were 'fizzing' to get going after a period of reflection over their style of play, and called on them to 'be smarter'.
'We still want to be known as a team who play an exciting style of cricket,' Stokes said. '[It's] not that we never wanted to win every game that we played, but it's changing what we say and how we say it. We want to be playing exciting games of cricket because we know that's what brings the best out of individuals and us as a team. But it's about winning.
'We have a team identity about how we want to go out there and play the game. We've obviously had a lot of time to speak about what we want to do as a team and where we want to take ourselves to. We've had time to talk as a group, identify areas where we know that we are incredibly strong, but also identify areas that we think we need to get better at.
'One of those areas was adapting better when our backs are against the wall. When those moments come in the series that they no doubt will, it's identifying them a lot quicker and just gritting your teeth and really asking what is it that we need to do in this given moment to wrestle the momentum back if we find ourselves behind.
'We know that when we are on top of teams we are very, very good and where we maybe have let ourselves down in the past over the last three years is when we have been behind the game that we've not given ourselves the best chance of wresting ourselves back into the game. That's an area that we have looked at and know that we need to get better at if we want to end up being where we want to end up being as a team.
'If [you] look at some of the victories that we've had, they have been in a manner of complete dominance of the game throughout. But when we have lost, we probably look back on those moments in games. 'Could we have been a lot better at slowing everything down and understanding where we are in the position of the game to then allow us to play in that natural way that we like to go about things?'
'I don't think it's arrogant or an understatement to say that we've been good over the last three years but we definitely know that we can improve. So those conversations away from this type of stuff and together in a room as a group are just as valuable as sometimes training in the nets and working harder.'
Stokes said that Brydon Carse would share the new ball with Chris Woakes, and added that the decision to pick Ollie Pope over the young pretender Jacob Bethell at No 3 was a simple one. Vice-captain Pope made 171 in England's only Test so far this year, against Zimbabwe while Bethell was at the Indian Premier League. Stokes said it would have been 'remarkable' to drop Pope after that innings.
The two teams will compete for the newly-named Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, named in honour of the great England bowler James Anderson and Test cricket's leading run-scorer, Sachin Tendulkar.
Play at Headingley gets going at 11am BST.