MULTAN
\nCaptain Ben Stokes was named in the England team for the second Test against Pakistan starting in Multan on Tuesday after recovering from a hamstring injury.
\nStokes suffered the injury two months ago and missed the three-match home series against Sri Lanka and last week\u2019s first Test, which the visitors won by an innings.
\nDurham seamer Matthew Potts also returns to the side for the first time since the Lord\u2019s Test against Sri Lanka at the end of August. Seamers Gus Atkinson and Chris Woakes are rested.
\n\u201cLook, it\u2019s obviously got to be sensible,\u201d said talismanic all-rounder Stokes on Monday after he was declared fit, having been bowling in the nets since before the first Test.
\n\u201cI\u2019m obviously playing as a third seamer.
\n\u201cI\u2019m available to bowl and obviously when I sense the time is right for me to maybe come on and make an impact there won\u2019t be any doubts in my mind that I can come on and bowl.\u201d
\nAsked if he could have played as a batsman only, the 33-year-old skipper added: \u201cThose were the sort of thoughts that went through my head at home before we came out.
\n\u201cI\u2019d written a few teams down with me not bowling, and it just didn\u2019t work.\u201d
\nEngland won the first Test, also in Multan, by an innings and 47 runs on Friday, with Ollie Pope leading the side in Stokes\u2019s absence. In a highly unusual move, the second Test will be played on the same pitch used for the first.
\nEngland rode on a brilliant 317 from Harry Brook and 262 from Joe Root for a stunning victory. Pakistan became the first team in Test cricket\u2019s 147-year history to lose by an innings after posting a 550-plus total in their first knock.
\nUnder-pressure Pakistan, who have gone 11 Tests without a win at home, named three frontline spinners in their team as they chase a series-levelling win.
\nThey have made four changes, including bringing in batsman Kamran Ghulam for his debut.
\nThe 29-year-old has performed well in domestic cricket, having set a national record of 1,249 runs in the 2020-21 season.
\nThe spin bowling will be handled by left-armer Noman Ali, leg-break bowler Zahid Mahmood and off-spinner Sajid Khan, all brought into the side.
\nPakistan left out batsman Babar Azam along with the pace duo of Shaheen Shah Afridi and Naseem Shah, and spinner Abrar Ahmed. He is still unwell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MULTAN Captain Ben Stokes was named in the England team for the second Test against Pakistan starting in Multan on Tuesday after recovering from a hamstring injury. Stokes suffered the injury two months ago and missed the three-match home series against Sri Lanka and last week\u2019s first Test, which the visitors won by an innings. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":71639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71640,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71623\/revisions\/71640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}