England continued their tradition to announce the playing XI a day before the Test match in the first of the five-match series against India too. The visitors confirmed playing three spinners in Rehan Ahmed, Jack Leach and debutant Tom Hartley even as Shoaib Bashir missed out with the delay in his visa approval. The Ben Stokes-led side named only one seamer in Mark Wood in the playing XI.
Moreover, even though the captain Stokes is an all-rounder, he is restricted to only batting at least for this Test due to his knee injury. Hence, it can be said that England are playing with only one seam bowler in their XI and it has happened for the first time in their 147-year Test history. The Brits played their first Test match in 1877 against Australia and never had only one specialist pace bowler in the side.
Only once before, they used just one seamer in the Test match against Australia in 1888 but England had another genuine seam bowler in their playing XI who wasn't required to bowl. Interestingly, James Anderson has not been preferred in the series and it will be Mark Wood bowling with the new ball for England for the first time since 2015.
Another even more interesting fact is if Wood doesn't open the bowling for the visitors, it will be the first time since 1902 that the two spinners will share the new ball for England. Len Braund and Colin Blythe did so against Australia in Adelaide 122 years ago.
Playing XIs
India: Rohit Sharma (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja, Srikar Bharat (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
England: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes (c), Ben Foakes (wk), Rehan Ahmed, Tom Hartley, Mark Wood, Jack Leach
