India win toss, bat against England in Stokes’ 100th Test

India captain Rohit Sharma won the toss and elected to bat against England in the third Test in Rajkot on Thursday.

The match is the 100th Test for England captain Ben Stokes. “Time flies when you’re having fun,” the 32-year-old said at the toss.

India made four changes to their team with the five-match series level at 1-1, handing Test debuts to batsman Sarfaraz Khan and wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel.

Mohammed Siraj and Ravindra Jadeja returned to the team.

Virat Kohli is out of the entire series and fellow batsman KL Rahul is injured.

India won the second Test by 104 runs to level the series after England took the opener by 28 runs.

England announced on Wednesday that pace bowler Mark Wood would return to their team in place of spinner Shoaib Bashir.

All-rounder Stokes, who is playing in the series as a batsman after recovering from knee surgery, has scored 6,251 runs and taken 197 wickets since his Test debut in 2013.

The match could see two other milestones.

India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin needs one dismissal to reach 500 Test wickets while England seamer James Anderson needs five more victims to reach 700.

India: Rohit Sharma (capt), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Rajat Patidar, Sarfaraz Khan, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj

England: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes (capt), Ben Foakes, Rehan Ahmed, Tom Hartley, Mark Wood, James Anderson

Umpires: Joel Wilson (WIS), Kumar Dharmasena (SRI)

TV umpire: Rod Tucker (AUS)

Match referee: Jeff Crowe (NZL)

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AFP

(NAMPA / AFP)