India skipper Virat Kohli won the toss and opted to bat in the third Test against England in Headingley. It was the first time Kohli won a toss in England in Test cricket. India fielded and unchanged XI while England brought in Dawid Malan and Craig Overton. India are 1-0 ahead in this 5-Test series. This is only the fourth time in 64 Tests Virat Kohli has played unchanged XIs in back-to-back Tests. This is also the first time Virat Kohli has won a toss in England in Test cricket. He lost 8 consecutive tosses before this.
Speaking at the toss, England skipper Root said, There's a bit of cloud cover and it's tacky, and it'll get better and better for batting eventually. Quite happy to lose the toss. Malan comes in for Sibley and Overton comes in for Wood. Overton was picked on the conditions. Saqib was great in the white-ball format, but Overton continuously performs in county cricket so we've picked him, even though it was a difficult choice to make. We need our openers to get us to a good start. It's one of the hardest things to open in England, as Virat said, and the openers have the temperament to get us off to a good start. India's middle-order, however, has had its troubles - Rahane, Pujara, and Kohli, three of their stalwarts, have failed to notch up a game-changing score.
England (Playing XI): Rory Burns, Haseeb Hameed, Dawid Malan, Joe Root(c), Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler(w), Moeen Ali, Sam Curran, Craig Overton, Ollie Robinson, James Anderson
India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli(c), Ajinkya Rahane, Rishabh Pant(w), Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
