New Delhi: Shoaib Bashir, the 20-year-old offspinner who reached India later than the rest of the England contingent due to a visa snag, will make his Test debut at Visakhapatnam on Friday when England take on India in the second Test of the five-match series.
The Somerset spinner will replace Jack Leach in England’s XI after the experienced spinner picked up a knee injury in the first Test.
Meanwhile, the veteran pacer James Anderson has also found a spot in England’s XI. He comes in for Mark Wood.
India are yet to announce their side for the second Test which will have a number of omissions. The BCCI had announced that talisman Virat Kohli would be missing the first two Tests for “personal reasons”. Meanwhile, KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja picked up injuries in the first game, leading the Indian think tank to call in three replacements: Sarfaraz Khan, Sourabh Kumar and Washington Sundar.
India will head into the second Test at at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam trailing the series by 0-1 after losing the first game by 28 runs, despite having the upper hand by virtue of leading by 190 runs after the first innings. However, in the second instalment, they slipped from 42-0 to being all out for 202 runs in 69.2 overs.
India’s squad
Rohit Sharma (C), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (WK), Dhruv Jurel (WK), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohd. Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Avesh Khan, Rajat Patidar, Sarfaraz Khan, Washington Sundar, Saurabh Kumar
England Men’s XI
1. Zak Crawley
2. Ben Duckett
3. Ollie Pope
4. Joe Root
5. Jonny Bairstow
6. Ben Stokes (C)
7. Ben Foakes
8. Rehan Ahmed
9. Tom Hartley
10. Shoaib Bashir
11. James Anderson
Agencies

KR Desk