India's five-Test tour to England in 2025 to kickstart from June 20 onwards

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], August 22 (ANI): The schedule for India's tour of England for 2025 was announced on Thursday, with the first Test set to take place from June 20 onwards at Headingley in Leeds. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the schedule on X. "Announced! A look at #TeamIndia's fixtures for the 5-match Test series against England in 2025 #ENGvIND," tweeted BCCI.

Announced! 🥁

A look at #TeamIndia's fixtures for the 5⃣-match Test series against England in 2025 🙌#ENGvIND pic.twitter.com/wS9ZCVbKAt

— BCCI (@BCCI) August 22, 2024

The second Test of the five-match series will take place from July 2-6, while the third Test will take place from July 10-14 at the iconic Lord's Stadium in London. The fourth Test will take place at Old Trafford in Manchester from July 23-27, while the final Test will take place at The Oval in London from July 31 to August 4.

This series will be an extremely crucial one for India, as they have not won a series against England in their territory since 2007 when they sealed a 1-0 win over Three Lions under the captaincy of Rahul Dravid. It will also serve as one of the highly-anticipated bilateral competitions of the ICC World Test Championship 2025-27 cycle.

During India's last tour of England, four Tests were played from August to September 2021 under the captaincy of Virat Kohli, which India was leading 2-1. However, the final match was rescheduled for July 2022 due to COVID-19. India played that match at Edgbaston under the captaincy of Jasprit Bumrah, losing it by seven wickets to level the series 2-2 and miss what was their best chance to secure a Test series win in England's testing conditions.

In the last Test series played between both the sides this year, England succumbed to a 4-1 loss to India in India, with skipper Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum's 'Bazball' approach to cricket failing to breach India's home supremacy, marked by dominant performances from skipper Rohit Sharma, opener Yashasvi Jaiswal, spinners Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin. Several youngsters like Shubman Gill, Dhruv Jurel, Sarfaraz Khan and Akash Deep also shined in what was a hotly-contested series. (ANI)