Pope to answer Lord’s prayers
this morning. Chris Woakes is primed to come into Stokes’ position for a first Test since Headingley against Pakistan after coming through rigorous fitness tests at Edgbaston without concerns following his recent quad muscle injury.
Pope will almost certainly slot in for Malan, although England could feasibly opt for Moeen Ali to fill LOST FORM: Malan has been averaging just 16 in either that gap in the batting or for Adil Rashid if the legspinner is not selected at Lord’s. That seems unlikely with Bayliss happy with the leg-spinner’s contribution in Birmingham despite captain Root using him typically sparingly. “Adil fitted back in well like we knew he would,” said Bayliss. “He’s a popular member of the team and when he got the opportunity did he
OLLIE WHO? UNKNOWN’S RAPID RISE TO TEST ARENA
PROMISE: Pope, left, as a Surrey Under-9 player his role. There will be other occasions where I’m sure he’ll get more of a bowl when the ball is spinning a bit more and not swinging as much. But I thought he played his role pretty well.”
India may well reach for more spin options given how well Ravi Ashwin tormented the left-handers in the line-up but in exchanging Malan for Pope, England will be one left-hander lighter.
Yet a middle order comprising Root, Jonny Bairstow, Pope and Jos Buttler could encourage India to pitch left arm leg spinner Kuldeep Yadav in to Lord’s instead of Ravi Jadeja.
ENGLAND SQUAD for Lord’s:
resulting from an incident in Bristol last September, which led to a suspension from international cricket during last winter’s Ashes.
The trial is expected to last a week, which the player hopes will see him free to return in time for the third Test of the series at Trent Bridge a week on Saturday.
England secured a 31-run victory in the series opener at Edgbaston and while Bayliss admitted he expects India to come back hard in the capital, he believes if the ball swings at Lord’s it could be difficult for the tourists.
He said: “They’re a very good team but we’re very much in the hunt here when the ball’s moving. We’ve shown that a few of their guys do struggle against the moving ball.
“But I’m sure that they’ll be going away working out how they can play it as we are going to be working on how to play the off spin.”