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England has named its playing XI for the one-off historic Test against Zimbabwe, which is set to commence on Thursday at Trent Bridge.
The four-day Test, marking the beginning of England’s summer, will be Zimbabwe’s first on English soil since 2003.
England is set to hand a debut to Sam Cook as head coach Brendon McCullum confirmed his place in the playing XI two days before the match.
Cook, 27, who has 321 wickets to his name in first-class cricket, will feature alongside a three-pronged pace attack. Josh Tongue is also returning to the team after being sidelined with injury for much of the past two years.
The England seam attack post Stuart Broad and James Anderson’s retirement is raw, with only 13 previous caps between them.
The playing XI also features right-arm spinner Shoaib Bashir, who is retained, while Ben Stokes is gearing up to feature as an all-rounder after suffering an injury during the last Test against New Zealand in December.
Stokes has not played a competitive match since undergoing surgery on his hamstring.
Brendon McCullum admitted to the inexperience of the pace attack while stressing the desire to expand options available to his team.
“We’ve made no secret of us wanting to build a battery of fast bowlers. Knowing that when you’re you’re dealing at the elite level and you’re asking guys to play at 100% and leave it all out there, there’s going to be things which happen, which means guys are going to miss out,” he said.
“For us to walk into this Test match week, I feel like we’ve got a nice varied attack. It’s got some youth, and it’s got some inexperience, but these guys have also been around this group now for a decent amount of time, and they know how to operate,” he concluded.
England XI for Zimbabwe Test
Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (capt), James Smith (wk), Gus Atkinson, Josh Tongue, Sam Cook, Shoaib Bashir
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