England batsman Ollie Pope is likely to miss the first Test of the five-match series between England and India as Pope sustained a thigh muscle injury on July 2 during Surrey's match against Kent in the domestic T20 tournament.

“Pope has been ruled out until England's Test Series against India after suffering a left thigh muscle injury,” England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said in a statement.

"The ECB and Surrey fitness teams will work together to deliver Pope's rehabilitation with a focus for him to be available to return for the first Test against India,” the statement further said.

The first Test match between the subcontinental giants and hosts England is slated to begin at Trent Bridge in Nottingham on August 4.

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Pope has scored 882 runs in 19 Tests with a highest score of 135 not out against South Africa in January, 2020. However, he has not been able to score more than 35 runs per innings in his last eight Tests.

If the 23-year-old batsman is unable to recover from the injury in time, then Dawid Malan, who has impressed with the bat in England's limited over cricket, may get a chance.

As far as Team India are concerned, they are likely to play two practice games before the Test series against England as compared to just one intra-squad game before the big final of World Test Championship (WTC) against New Zealand.

Thus, it will be interesting to see how Virat Kohli and Co. perform in the upcoming Test series after the practice games that will help them get used to the English conditions as the Indians looked to be lacking match practice in the WTC final at Southampton.

(With PTI Inputs)