Stand-in England captain Ollie Pope puts India into bat in fifth cricket test at The Oval

By Canadian Press on July 31, 2025.

LONDON (AP) — Stand-in England captain Ollie Pope won the toss and put India into bat in the fifth and final cricket test at The Oval on Thursday.

Pope is leading the England team in the absence of Ben Stokes, who is absent with a sore shoulder and has been replaced in the side by Jacob Bethell.

Jamie Overton, Gus Atkinson and Josh Tongue also replace Jofra Archer, Brydon Carse and Liam Dawson in the bowling attack.

“There’s a bit more grass in the wicket this week, overcast conditions, it’s a no- brainer to bowl first,” Pope said.

India made four changes to its team with Karun Nair, Dhruv Jurel, Akash Deep and Prasidh Krishna coming in for Rishabh Pant, Jasprit Bumrah, Shardul Thakur and Anshul Kamboj.

Captain Shubman Gill lost the toss for the fifth time in the series, meaning India has now gone 15 successive international matches without winning it.

“As long as we are winning the match I don’t mind losing the toss,” Gill said. “The wicket looks good so post runs in the first innings and take it from there.”

England leads the series 2-1.

Lineups:

England: Crawley, Duckett, Pope (captain), Root, Brook, Bethell, Smith, Woakes, Overton, Atkinson, Tongue.

India: Jaiswal, Rahul, Nair, Gill, Sudharsan, Jadeja, Sundar, Jurel, Deep, Siraj, Krishna.

___

AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket

The Associated Press