[Lord Snooty]

England v Pakistan

The 2nd Test Match

Friday July 22nd - Tuesday July 26th

at Old Trafford
starting at 11:00

Team news:

After the failings of the batsmen at Lord's, it is the bowlers who pay the price, with both Jake Ball and Steven Finn chopped from the 14-man squad on the eve of the game, to ensure the prompt returns of Anderson and Stokes. The whittling implies it could be a straight shootout between Moeen and Rashid for the spin-bowling slot, in which case Bairstow would slide back down to No. 7 to accommodate Stokes in his favoured No. 6 position. But, given the surfeit of genuine allrounders in England's squad, there is a strong case to experiment with two spinners in a six-man attack. Chris Woakes was one of England's most solid batsmen at Lord's and is arguably wasted as low as No. 9.

England (probable) 1 Alastair Cook (capt), 2 Alex Hales, 3 Joe Root, 4 James Vince/Adil Rashid, 5 Gary Ballance, 6 Ben Stokes, 7 Jonny Bairstow (wk), 8 Moeen Ali, 9 Chris Woakes, 10 Stuart Broad, 11 James Anderson.

No overt hints from Misbah as to the make-up of his XI, but there seems little reason for Pakistan to change a winning formula. Their batsmen produced enough runs over the course of two innings - and will be better acquainted with the conditions having done so - while the trio of left-arm seamers all came good on the final day to take the pressure off Yasir. There was a minor scare in the build-up to the match when Yasir was struck on the left shoulder in the nets, but he's good to go.

Pakistan (probable) 1 Mohammad Hafeez, 2 Shan Masood, 3 Azhar Ali, 4 Younis Khan, 5 Misbah-ul-Haq (capt), 6 Asad Shafiq, 7 Sarfraz Ahmed (wk), 8 Wahab Riaz, 9 Mohammad Amir, 10 Rahat Ali, 11 Yasir Shah.