LONDON: England captain Ben Stokes won the toss and chose to bowl in the second Ashes Test at Lord’s on Wednesday, while Australia recalled Mitchell Starc.
The gloomy and humid conditions, paired with a green-tinged surface, were expected to help England’s fast bowlers as the hosts attempted to tie the five-match series at 1-1.
Australia entered the match on the back of a thrilling two-wicket victory in the first Test at Edgbaston last week.
Read more : Test Series Between Pakistan and India in Australia Gets the Go-Ahead from Najam Sethi
England announced their squad on Tuesday, with fast bowler Josh Tongue, who only made his Test debut against Ireland earlier this month at Lord’s, replacing injured off-spinner Moeen Ali.
With Tongue included, England’s assault consisted of four frontline seamers and no specialist slow bowler, though Stokes might use Joe Root’s off-breaks.
“I think the overheads have obviously played a massive part in this, and there’s a bit of grass on the pitch, so we hope it can do a bit this morning,” Stokes said before the toss.
After England plagued the seamer in Birmingham, Australia recalled left-arm fast Starc in place of Scott Boland. “We would have had a bowl as well,” Australia captain Pat Cummins stated.
“It has something to do with the clouds above.” “We’re really happy with how Scotty (Boland) is going, but unfortunately he is the one who is missing out this week,” the fast bowler continued.
“We’re thrilled to have someone from Mitchell Starc’s class back.”
Australia’s best batters, Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne, combined for 35 runs in four innings at Edgbaston.
“There are a couple of areas that we could clean up from last week,” Cummins noted. They (Smith and Labuschagne) are world-class players who seldom skip out, so I know how hard they’ve been training.”
After being named to Australia’s Ashes squad, Nathan Lyon became the first specialist bowler to appear in 100 consecutive Tests, with the off-spinner needing just five more wickets to become only the seventh man to capture 500 in Tests.
Teams
England’s team consists of Ben Duckett, Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (captain), Jonny Bairstow (wkt), Stuart Broad, Ollie Robinson, Josh Tongue, and James Anderson.
Australia’s batting order is as follows: David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Cameron Green, Alex Carey (wkt), Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins (capt), Nathan Lyon, and Josh Hazlewood.
Chris Gaffney (NZL) and Ahsan Raza (PAK) were the umpires.
Marais Erasmus (RSA) is the television umpire.
Andy Pycroft (ZIM) is the match official.
