India coach Gautam Gambhir to rejoin team in Leeds on Tuesday

Dubai: India head coach Gautam Gambhir, who had rushed back to India due to a family emergency, is all set to rejoin the team on Tuesday ahead of the opening Test against England at Leeds, starting on June 20.

The former Indian opener had returned to India after his mother suffered a heart attack, and had to be hospitalised.

"His mother is doing well now. Gautam will leave tomorrow and join the squad the same day," a BCCI source told PTI.

In his absence, assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate, batting coach Sitanshu Kotak and bowling coach Morne Morkel supervised the team's preparation ahead of the five-match rubber.

The Indian team had been stationed in Beckenham to play an intra-squad game, held between the main Test team and India ‘A’ team, led by Abhimanyu Easwaran and coached by Hrishikesh Kanitkar. The match was played behind closed doors, with updates on it shared by BCCI’s social media accounts.

The Shubman Gill-led Indian Test squad is searching for its first series win in England since 2007.

The Indian team had been stationed in Beckenham to play an intra-squad game, held between the main Test team and India 'A' team, led by Abhimanyu Easwaran and coached by Hrishikesh Kanitkar. The match was played behind closed doors, with updates on it shared by BCCI's social media accounts.

Around the time when the intra-squad game was on, visuals of VVS Laxman, the former India cricketer and head of BCCI Centre of Excellence (CoE), being around the team surfaced. It raised some curiosity as Laxman being with the Indian team coincided with Gambhir flying back to be with his family in New Delhi.

But sources told IANS that Laxman meeting Indian team was always a part of his itinerary, as he was slated to be in England for only two days, after being in Lausanne, Switzerland, for a function related to the Olympics.

Once back in Leeds, Gambhir and the Indian team think-tank have a lot of decisions to make in terms of playing eleven’s make-up – like deciding which three Tests Jasprit Bumrah will play, who would bat at number three and four – with B Sai Sudharsan, Karun Nair, Dhruv Jurel and Abhimanyu Easwaran the contenders.