England have announced their playing XI for the third Test against India at Rajkot's Saurashtra Cricket Association (SCA) stadium starting Thursday, February 15. England made one change to their line-up as they brought back Mark Wood into the side replacing off-spinner Shoaib Bashir, who made his debut in the second Test in Visakhapatnam. This change means that England will be playing two pacers for the first time in the series as Wood joins veteran James Anderson in the team having gone with three spinners and one fast bowler combination in the first two games.
Bashir took four wickets on his debut with three coming in the first innings. However, with Tom Hartley and Rehan Ahmed performing much better with the ball and Joe Root filling in the off-spinner's role, England decided to go with an extra pace option given it's a flat wicket in Rajkot. Anderson was sensational in the second Test taking five wickets as he took his tally to 695 and will be hoping to add five more to it to get to the elusive 700 landmark.
Wood's inclusion provides England with an X-factor, which they might require if the wicket doesn't wear down enough in 3-4 days. The rest of the line-up remained the same even though England will hope for a few more runs from their middle-order, especially their former captain Joe Root, who has returned scores of 29, 2, 5 and 16 in the first two matches.
The series is levelled 1-1 after India came back strongly with a 106-run win in the second game and the third Test might be critical from the series point of view.
England playing XI for Rajkot Test
Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes(c), Ben Foakes(w), Rehan Ahmed, Tom Hartley, James Anderson, Mark Wood
