England Cricket Black Armbands: Why are English cricketers wearing black armbands today in Chennai Test vs India?

England Cricket Black Armbands: The English cricketers are wearing black armbands in the ongoing first Test in Chennai.

During the first day of the first Test of the ongoing England’s tour of India in Chennai, England captain Joe Root has won the toss and chose to bat. Playing his 100th Test match at the MA Chidambaram Stadium today, Root has become the 15th English player to achieve the milestone.

It is worth mentioning that the four-match series will also witness Root equaling former England captain Andrew Strauss to become only the fifth England captain to play 50 Test matches.

England, who’ve made four changes to their Playing XI despite winning last Test against Sri Lanka at Galle, have included batsmen Rory Burns and Ollie Pope, all-rounder Ben Stokes and fast bowler Jofra Archer for batsmen Zac Crawley and Jonny Bairstow, all-rounder Sam Curran and fast bowler Mark Wood.

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India, on the other hand, have had to make five changes to their Playing XI as captain Virat Kohli, spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Shahbaz Nadeem and fast bowlers Jasprit Bumrah and Ishant Sharma have replaced the likes of Mayank Agarwal, Shardul Thakur, Navdeep Saini, Mohammed Siraj and T. Natarajan.

England Cricket Black Armbands

During the national anthems and now while batting, English players are clearly seen donning black armbands. It is worth mentioning that the black armbands have been worn as a mark of respect for WWII veteran Captain Sir Tom Moore, who passed away recently due to COVID-19.

Captain Tom, 100, had raised more than £32m for the UK’s NHS (National Health Service) by walking 100 laps of his backyard during the coronavirus pandemic last year. It was on his 100th birthday that he was capped as an honorary member of the England cricket team.