Image Source: Agencies

England captain Ben Stirs up picked to bat in the initial Trial of the five-match series against India here on Thursday.

India picked left-arm spinner Axar Patel in front of Kuldeep Yadav.

KL Rahul is set to bat at No 4 without any Virat Kohli, while Srikar Bharat will be the man behind the stumps.

England gave debut cap to thin left-arm spinner Tom Hartley.

Groups:

India: Rohit Sharma (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja, Srikar Bharat (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj.

England: Ben Stirs up (c), Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Foakes (wk), Rehan Ahmed, Tom Hartley, Imprint Wood and Jack Drain.