Why Are India And England Wearing Black Armbands: Indian and English cricketers are wearing black armbands on the first day of the ongoing England vs India Test match. But why?
India is taking on England in the second of the five Tests of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy series. This match is being played at Edgbaston in Birmingham and saw the home side win the toss and decide to bowl first on a pitch that is expected to be batter-friendly, with some support to pacers on Day One.
Why Are India And England Wearing Black Armbands?
Speaking of the first day, both teams will wear a black armband for the inaugural day of this second India vs England Test. But what is the reason behind it?
Both national teams are wearing the armband in honour of former English cricketer Wayne “Ned” Larkins, who sadly passed away on June 28th.
Larkin played for Durham, Northamptonshire, and the England Cricket Team in his long cricket career. The top-order batter made his professional debut in 1972 and had an illustrious domestic cricket career, scoring over 40000 runs across formats.
Wayne also made his national team debut in June 1979, playing for England in an ODI against New Zealand. He would have a 12-year-long international cricket career, where he would play for the England Cricket Team sporadically, playing 12 Tests and 25 ODIs. And while he was never a superstar of the national team, Larkin had an absolutely stellar county cricket career and is considered an absolute legend of English cricket.
This gesture by both teams is very similar to something they did in the first Test. In the first England vs India test of this five-game series, both teams wore black armbands on multiple days of the game. One day was in remembrance of former Indian Cricket Team player Dilip Doshi, and one day was to honour former English cricketer David Lawrence. Meanwhile, the teams wore the bands for a day to mourn the recent Ahmedabad plane crash, which claimed the lives of 260 people.
After a win in the first Test, England came into the second match of the series with no changes in their squad as they won the toss and decided to bowl first.
Meanwhile, India made three big changes. Jasprit Bumrah is rested due to workload management concerns and is replaced by Akash Deep. Sai Sudharsan is cut from the team for Washington Sunday, and Shardul Thakur makes it easy for Nitish Kumar Reddy.
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