South Africa win toss, bat; Simon Harmer in for Marco Jansen

By Chris On Aug 25, 2022

South Africa won the toss and chose to bat against England

South Africa won the toss in the second Test under cloudy skies at Emirates Old Trafford … and chose to bat first, in a decision designed to maximise the impact of their twin-spin attack in the fourth innings, but which offered Ben Stokes’ England a chance to play to their strengths once again by chasing the game, just as they did in their four consecutive victories at the start of the summer.

Simon Harmer – arguably the pre-eminent bowler in English domestic cricket given his past five years with Essex – is back in South Africa’s line-up at the expense of Marco Jansen, the lanky left-arm seamer and allrounder, who impressed with bat and ball in the Lord’s victory.

With the left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj also retained, South Africa’s pace attack will be carried by Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi and Anrich Nortje, who touched speeds close to 97mph during a sizzling display in South Africa’s innings victory in the first Test.

For England, Ollie Robinson returns to the line-up for the first time since the Ashes campaign in January, having overcome a myriad of fitness and illness issues, including back spasms in the Caribbean and a bout of toothache that undermined his early-season opportunities with Sussex. He was named in the team on the eve of the match, in place of Matt Potts.

England: 1 Alex Lees, 2 Zak Crawley, 3 Ollie Pope, 4 Joe Root, 5 Jonny Bairstow, 6 Ben Stokes (capt), 7 Ben Foakes (wk), 8 Ollie Robinson, 9 Stuart Broad, 10 Jack Leach, 11 James Anderson

South Africa: 1 Dean Elgar (capt), 2 Sarel Erwee, 3 Keegan Petersen, 4 Aiden Markram, 5 Rassie van der Dussen, 6 Kyle Verreynne (wk), 7 Keshav Maharaj, 8 Simon Harmer, 9 Kagiso Rabada, 10 Anrich Nortje, 11 Lungi Ngidi

For all the latest Sports News Click Here

Read original article here

Denial of responsibility! TechAI is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.