Before facing England on August 1, the Indian side is all set to play the Essex County Cricket Club in a three-day practice game at the County Cricket Ground in Chelmsford.

The match will start on July 25, 2018, and will end on July 27, 2018. The Indian test side seems all geared up for the big series of this summer as they will be playing five tests against England over the course of almost six weeks.

Live updates:

India 190/5 in 53 overs.

India won the toss and decided to bat first.

The match will start at 10:00 AM GMT, which is 3:30 PM in IST, on each of the three days.

The only practice game is meant for preparing the Indian side for this series as the players try to get adjusted to the English conditions. The match will be played according to the usual rules of first-class cricket, but it won't be counted as an official match as there is no restriction regarding the playing XI. This means any 11 players from the squad will be allowed to bat, while any 11 players will be allowed to bowl.

Last time India traveled to England was in 2014, and the side lost a five-match test series to the hosts by 3-1.

Incidentally, India had played two three-day practice games against two English county clubs.

India opt for three-day affair instead of four, Essex disappointed

The practice game for India against Essex was earlier said to be a four-day match, but upon BCCI's request, it was shortened by a day, making it a three-day match now.

This request by the Indian board and team management arrived at the doors of ECB and Essex Cricket due to the current heat wave situation in England.

Shortening the match by a day will help the tourists to get another day of training before the first test at Edgbaston. According to the Cricbuzz, Essex is quite disappointed by this settlement considering the late notice by the BCCI, but the club realizes there is nothing that can be in this situation.

The live stream can be watched on Sky Sports Cricket channel in the UK and the live streaming can be watched on the official website of Essex Cricket Essex.ukcricket.tv/livestream.

As the teams are concerned, India has picked up an 18 member squad for the test series that is about to start soon, and the entire squad will be participating in the game versus Essex. There is no information on pacer Bhuvaneshwar Kumar's injury yet.

Essex, on the other hand, will be missing their regular captain Ryan ten Doeschate, while some other key players like Alastair Cook, Ravi Bopara and Peter Siddle also will not be playing this match.
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