The BCCI on Saturday (May 24) unveiled an 18-member squad for the upcoming five-Test tour of England, with 25-year-old Shubman Gill named as the new captain.

The series marks the beginning of a new chapter for Indian Test cricket following the recent retirements of veteran batters -- Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli.

With Rohit leaving the Test arena, Gill was widely tipped to take over the leadership role. A consistent performer in all formats and already seen as a long-term prospect, the young batter will now take charge in one of the most challenging overseas assignments. Wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant will assist him as deputy of the Test side.

With less than a month remaining for the England series, veteran batter Cheteshwar Pujara urged BCCI officials to adopt a balanced approach when it came to family restrictions for players during long tours.

Notably, the BCCI had made sweeping changes to Indian cricket team's player regulations in the wake of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024/25 debacle.

Cracking the whip against the players, the Indian board implemented a stringent 10-point policy, including limiting travel of wives and girlfriends on overseas tours.

“I would say that families should be traveling. They should be with the players, the window. I mean, there are times where the families are there throughout the series. You as a player, you know, professionally, you want to be attending your practice sessions. So there has to be a window,” Pujara told Firstpost.

“Normally what most of the teams do is they have a window of two or three weeks in a long tour. So if you are going away from home for 40 days, there are three weeks where families can travel. So that’s the best way to balance it out, because there are times where coaching staff or the management feels that if the families are traveling, then players are not focused enough, which may not be the case.”

“But just to balance it out, I think if you have a proper window where families can travel and at the same time, if you are going there early for preparation, then players are just focusing on the preparation part. And then when it starts you have to three weeks window where families can travel,” he added.

The five-Test series between India and England is slated to get underway on June 20 at Headingley, followed by matches at Lord's (June 28), Trent Bridge (July 6), The Oval (July 14), and Old Trafford (July 24).

India Squad for England Tests: Shubman Gill (c), Rishabh Pant (vc & wk), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav.