Tosses and Virat Kohli have a sought of a complicated relationship. Kohli loses more tosses than he wins. Continuing with the trend, Virat lost yet another toss at the first Test in Chennai. England captain, Joe Root won the toss and chose to bat first. The decision to bat first must have come looking at the pitch conditions. The current Chepauk pitch looks very unusual. It is dry but also has some grass in patches and will deteriorate once the Test match progresses making it difficult to bat on the fourth and fifth Day.
So, it is a good start for England as they would look to dominate in the first innings when the conditions would be preferring the batsmen. Virat Kohli said at the toss that the team has to focus on the present. The playing eleven is as follows:
India: Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli (c), Ajinkya Rahane, Rishabh Pant (wk), Washington Sundar, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ishant Sharma, Shahbaz Nadeem, Jasprit Bumrah
England: Rory Burns, Dominic Sibley, Daniel Lawrence, Joe Root (c), Ben Stokes, Ollie Pope, Jos Buttler (wk), Dominic Bess, Jofra Archer, Jack Leach, James Anderson