ENG vs IND 2025: KL Rahul asks BCCI to take part in India A games ahead of five-match series

Star batter KL Rahul is likely to leave early for the England series, following the end of his and Delhi Capitals' campaign in the IPL 2025. As India A will play England Lions in the second unofficial game from June 6 in Northampton, the ace batter wishes to play in the match to try and get set to the conditions ahead of joining the senior side for an all-important five-match series starting later in the month.

Rahul was originally set to travel with the rest of the players in the Indian Test squad on June 6. As the Delhi Capitals were not eliminated from the ongoing IPL season when the Indian squad was announced, his travel was set to take place with the Indian squad. Now that DC have ended their season, Rahul's campaign has come to an end.

To try to make the best use of his time before the start of the Test series against England, the Karnataka batter has decided to fly earlier than his team members for the United Kingdom, as per a report from The Times of India. The star batter did something similar before the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25, where he featured for India A's tour games against Prime Minister's XI.

Before the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024/25, Rahul flew early to Australia and practiced getting to know the conditions better. As per the report, Rahul requested the BCCI to fly early to the UK and has been given a nod as well, along with everything necessary for him to practice before the start of the series.

However, the poor weather conditions in major cities like Mumbai and Bengaluru have meant an early departure for Rahul. The 33-year-old, who had a stellar campaign as specialist batter for DC in the IPL, has demanded to feature for the A side, where Shubman Gill and Sai Sudharsan are also supposed to make themselves available.

India A commence their England Lions assignment

Speaking of the first unofficial Test that is already underway, captain Abhimanyu Easwaran and Yashasvi Jaiswal opened but failed to impress on the opening day against England Lions. The next two batters in - Karun Nair and Sarfaraz Khan batted brilliantly to pull the team out of trouble. The duo built on a 150-plus partnership at the time of writing, and batted over a session and a half to steady the sinking ship after the visitors were 51 for 2 at one stage.