England vs Australia 4th Test Day 1: Hosts captain Ben Stokes won the toss at Manchester and decided to field first against Australia in the fourth Test. Australia are currently 2-1 up in the five-match series after first three games.
It’s an interesting decision by Stokes and no captain has ever won a match at Old Trafford, Manchester after opting to bowl first but the England captain is hoping to make history.
“We’re going to bowl. (On no team winning after electing to bowl first at Manchester) Will be a nice thing for us to do that,” Stokes said at the toss. “The clarity helps, we had the same mindset in the last game. Spoke about the weather quite a bit last week but doesn’t look too bad today. We’ll have to adapt. If the game gets to a point where we need to push things on we’ll be able to do that, that’s how we play naturally.
Veteran pacer James Anderson is back for England in place of Ollie Robinson.
“Anderson has been an unbelievable performer. He offers a lot in terms of control, no issues whatsoever with him. Moeen can have an impact on the game batting at three. He’s more than capable of playing there, takes nothing away from Brook,” Stokes added.
Australia skipper Pat Cummins said that his team wants to win the series in Manchester.
“We would’ve bowled first too but not a bad toss to lose, looks a good wicket. The game is played at quite a quick pace here. We’ve got two all rounders and Travis Head, gives us lot of options. There’s always a bit of risk, we’ve gone for a slightly different lineup than usual. We absolutely want to win this, we want to win the series and the guys are here to win this. We all had a great break, some of the guys went to different places in Europe.”
England XI: Ben Duckett, Zak Crawley, Harry Brook, Joe Root, Ben Stokes(c), Jonny Bairstow(w), Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood, Stuart Broad, James Anderson
Australia XI: David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Cameron Green, Alex Carey(w), Pat Cummins(c), Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood
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