London, Jul 21 : Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and elected to field in their first of the four-match Test series against England at Lord's here today. Overcast conditions following light rain appear to have dictated India's choice who are fielding three medium pacers, including returning pace spearhead Zaheer Khan.
Yuvraj Singh missed out of the playing eleven with Suresh Raina, who led the Indian side in the West Indies Test series, was included.
England left out Tim Bresnan from their playing eleven, and like India, are also fielding four frontline bowlers. The historic match is the 100th Test between the two countries and the 2000th in the cricket annals. Indian batting batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar is coming into the match with just one century short of 100 international tons.
Duncan Fletcher also became the coach with most number of Tests at the helm of affairs of a national team with 100 matches under his belt.
The Teams:
India: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt; wk), Sachin Tendulkar, Abhinav Mukund, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma and Praveen Kumar.
England: Andrew Strauss (capt), Alastair Cook, Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Eoin Morgan, Matthew Prior (wk), James Anderson, Graeme Swann, Chris Tremlett and Stuart Broad.
Umpires: Billy Bowden (New Zealand) and Asad Rauf (Pakistan)
Match referee: Ranjan Madugalle (Sri Lanka). PTI
