NEWS
Follow UsEngland and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has announced the XI for England’s first Test against West Indies at Lord’s starting Wednesday (July 10). Two Surrey players, Jamie Smith and Gus Atkinson will make their Test debut in the series opener.
Chris Woakes and Harry Brook return to the fold. Woakes was England’s Player of the Series during a 2-2 drawn Ashes series last year, which was also the last time England played at home.
Smith, a wicketkeeper-batter, will take the gloves from Ben Foakes who played in England’s last Test in Dharamsala in March this year. However, in home conditions, Jonny Bairstow was the wicketkeeper batter during Ashes 2023. Both Bairstow and Foakes were underpar with the bat in India, averaging 23.8 and 25.6 respectively.
Smith, on the other hand, is delivering a stellar County Championship season with the bat. A right-handed batter, Smith has amassed 677 runs at an average of 56.4 while scoring two hundreds for Surrey in the County Championship Division One.
Gus Atkinson has played 12 white-ball internationals for England (9 ODIs and 3 T20Is). He was also part of England’s ODI World Cup squad in 2023 and the five Tests in India earlier but didn’t get a game. In the ongoing County Championship, he has 14 wickets in nine innings at 29.8 runs apiece.
Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope will continue to frame England’s top order with Joe Root and Ben Stokes at number four and six respectively. Shoaib Bashir is also persistent in the XI as their lone frontline spinner. The Three Lions will thus have batting till number eight and two seam-bowling all-rounders in Woakes and Stokes.
The Test match will mark the end of James Anderson’s marathon Test career, spanning across 21 years.
The other two Tests in the series will be played in Nottingham (July 18 onwards) and Birmingham (July 26).
England’s XI for the Lord’s Test:
Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes ( c ), Jamie Smith (wk), Chris Woakes, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, James Anderson
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