India and England are taking on each other in the first Test of the five-match series. The game is being played at the Hedingley in Leeds. The new-look Team India is playing under the captaincy of newly appointed Test skipper Shubman Gill, alongside having Rishabh Pant as his deputy.
Meanwhile, what attracted the headlines is the players of both teams wearing the black armbands on their hands in the opening Test of the series.
With that said, here we’ll have a look at the reason behind the players of both teams wearing the black armbands.
Here's the reason behind players wearing black armbands
The reason behind the black armbands has been revealed by the England Cricket on their official X handle (formerly Twitter).
“Both teams will wear black armbands today as a mark of respect for those who lost their lives in the Air India plane crash,” read the X post shared by England Cricket.
“Our thoughts are with all those affected by the terrible events that took place in Ahmedabad last week,” it added later.
So, the players of both India and England will mourn the 278 lost lives in this tragic plane crash that unfolded in India’s Ahmedabad on June 12. One of its kind, heartbreaking accidents had only one survivor among 242 passengers on board, killing 241 of them.
Speaking of the current action of the game on the first day of the first Test between England and India in Leeds, the visitors have scored 55 runs for no loss in 17.3 overs. Openers KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal are there in the middle at individual scores of 24 and 29 runs, respectively.
Here’s a look at India’s Playing XI for the first Test:
Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill (c), Rishabh Pant †, Karun Nair, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, and Prasidh Krishna