DHAKA // Zafar Ansari will make his England Test debut against Bangladesh in Dhaka.
The slow left-armer, who was left out of the opener in Chittagong despite taking four for 68 in the second warm-up game, will replace fellow spinner and Surrey teammate Gareth Batty in the line-up.
England captain Alastair Cook also announced Steven Finn would replace the rested Stuart Broad, who was in line for his 100th Test at the Shere Bangla National Stadium.
“Zafar’s going to make his debut coming in for Gareth and Finny’s coming in for Broady,” Cook said.
All-rounder Ansari made his England bow in May 2015 in the one-off one-day international against Ireland in Dublin – although he did not get a chance to bowl or bat after the contest was washed out after 18 overs.
• Alastair Cook praises 'seriously good cricketer' Ben Stokes as Bangladesh fall agonisingly short of Test victory
He would arguably have made his Test bow long before now but for a broken thumb, sustained on the same day he was named in England’s Test squad to face Pakistan in the UAE.
He was ruled out for the entire winter and although it also troubled him at the start of the season, he took 22 wickets in 10 County Championship Division One matches at an average of 31.40.
He will now be given the chance to make an overdue debut in the second Test against Bangladesh, with England looking to wrap up a 2-0 series win ahead of their trip to India.
“Clearly he has the ability to take the ball away from the right-handers,” Cook said.
“He can bowl at good pace with good control. It will be really interesting to see how he goes. He can also bat as well, which is good.”
Cook said Jake Ball was in contention to replace Chris Woakes as England wanted to give all their bowlers a taste of subcontinental conditions before a gruelling five-Test series against India, which starts on November 9 in Rajkot.
But Woakes will retain his place in the XI, with Cook saying it will be advantageous for the Warwickshire seamer to gain more experience of the conditions.
“In an ideal way we would have liked Jake to have a game as well but we feel as if Chris Woakes hasn’t played a huge amount of cricket on the subcontinent, didn’t have a huge workload in the last game and we feel it’ll be beneficial for him to experience these conditions,” Cook said.
Cook said it had been a tough decision to omit the experienced Broad, whose spell late on Day 4 in Bangladesh’s second innings swung the momentum back in England’s favour.
But Cook said: “I’m sure he’d have liked to have got that milestone but this is a case of looking a bit further to the future and he understands the amount of cricket he could play over the next six weeks.
Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE
Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/TheNationalSport
