Rawalpindi [Pakistan]: Leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed has been called for the third and final Test match of the three-match series as England announced the playing XI for the Rawalpindi Test against Pakistan with the match to be kick start from Thursday.
The Test series is equally poised at 1-1 with the decider set to be played at the Rawalpindi Cricket Ground.
For the last match of the series, the Three Lions have brought back Gus Atkinson and Rehan Ahmed in place of Brydon Carse and Matthew Potts.
The Ben Stokes-led side will be going with three spinners in this match. Rehan will be accompanied by left-arm spinner Jack Leach and off-spinner Shoaib Bashir in the line-up.
Except for these two changes, the playing XI for the visitors will be the same as the previous match which they lost by 152 runs at the Multan Cricket Stadium.
England Playing XI for the Rawalpindi Test: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (captain), Jamie Smith (wicket-keeper), Gus Atkinson, Rehan Ahmed, Jack Leach, Shoaib Bashir.
England’s right-hand batter Harry Brook believed that the conditions at Rawalpindi would be different as compared to earlier
“I think the conditions are going to be a little bit different. We played on an extremely flat pitch here last time. It was awesome to bat on, and we scored a good rate of knots. This game’s probably going to be slightly different. It might turn earlier on: who knows? It might be a good pitch to start with and we get off to a flyer,” Brook said as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.
“They’ve had the rakes out, the fans and the heaters on the pitch. Everyone goes and looks at the wicket and says something different… Hopefully, it’s just like any other Pakistani pitch. It’s good to bat on for the first few days and then hopefully, we can get a bit of turn out of it at the back end of the game,” Brook added.