Hours after India sealed a historic Test win at The Gabba, to retain the Border-Gavaskar trophy 2-1, BCCI announced the 18-member squad on Tuesday for upcoming England series. 


The team was announced after BCCI's Senior National Selection Committee, headed by Chetan Sharma, along with Sunil Joshi, Debashish Mohanty, Harvinder Singh and Abe Kuruvilla met virtually to select the squad for the first two Test matches of the four-Test series against England.


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Virat Kohli, who was on paternity leave after the first Test match against Australia, is returning and has been named as the captain of the squad while Ajinkya Rahane has been handed the vice-captain duties. Ishant Sharma who missed the Australia series due to abdominal injury has also been picked. After a more than decent Australia series, Mohammad Siraj and Washington Sundar have also been retained in the squad. 


Here is the entire team selected for the first two Test matches:


1. Virat Kohli (C)
2. Rohit Sharma
3. Mayank Agarwal
4. Shubman Gill
5. Cheteshwar Pujara
6. Ajinkya (VC)
7. KL Rahul
8. Hardik
9. Rishabh Pant (wk)
10. Wriddhiman Saha (wk)
11. R Ashwin
12. Kuldeep Yadav
13. Axar Patel
14. Washington Sundar
15. Ishant Sharma
16. Jasprit Bumrah
17. Md. Siraj
18. Shardul Thakur


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="in" dir="ltr">TEAM - Virat Kohli (Capt), Rohit Sharma, Mayank Agarwal, Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya (VC), KL Rahul, Hardik, Rishabh Pant (wk), Wriddhiman Saha (wk), R Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Md. Siraj, Shardul Thakur</p>&mdash; BCCI (@BCCI) <a >January 19, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


England is coming on a long tour of India. They are slated to play 4 Test, 3-ODI and 5 T20I matches. The Indian team is scheduled to play the first Test with England in Chennai from 5 to 9 February and the second Test in Chennai as well from 13 to 17 February.