Why are India and England players wearing black armbands on Day 1 of ENG vs IND 2025 2nd Test?

Indian and England cricket players donned black armbands on Day 1 (Wednesday, July 2) of the second Test of the ongoing Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy Test series at Edgbaston, Birmingham, in memory of former English cricketer Wayne Larkins, who passed away on June 28 in Coventry at the age of 71.

Larkins represented England in 13 Tests and 25 ODIs between 1979 and 1991. The batter died following a short illness. He was a County Cricket legend, with 700 appearances for Northamptonshire. He finished with 29,929 runs in County Cricket.

Ahead of the start of the day's play, the Indian and English players paid a tribute to Larkins by observing a moment of silence. You can watch the clip below:

Meanwhile, the hosts England claimed a 1-0 lead in the five-match Test series against England. They overhauled India's daunting 371-run target with five wickets in hand at Headingley, Leeds, recording the tenth-highest successful run chase in Test cricket.

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England won the toss and chose to field first in ENG vs IND 2025 2nd Test

England captain Ben Stokes won the toss and chose to field first at Edgbaston. The home team stuck to their winning side, going with an unchanged lineup.

India, on the other hand, made three changes to their side. Jasprit Bumrah was rested as part of his workload management, while Shardul Thakur and Sai Sudharsan were left out of the side in favor of Nitish Kumar Reddy and Washington Sundar.

Speaking at the toss, Team India skipper Gill said (via Cricbuzz):

"Three changes - Reddy, Washi and Akash Deep come in. No Bumrah. Just to manage his workload. We did get a good break and this is an important match for us. But the third Test being at Lord's, we think there'll be more in that pitch so we'll use him there. We were tempted to play Kuldeep but looking at the last match, our lower order didn't do well, so decided to add some depth to the batting."

Here are the two playing XIs for ENG vs IND 2025 2nd Test:

IND: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Karun Nair, Shubman Gill(c), Rishabh Pant(w), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna

ENG: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes(c), Jamie Smith(w), Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue, Shoaib Bashir