MANCHESTER: England skipper Ben Stokes opted to field first against Australia in the fourth Test match of the Ashes series at Emirates Old Trafford in Manchester on Wednesday.
Australia are leading the series by 2-1. They will look to win and claim the Ashes in today’s match while England would try to equal the series.
England captain Stokes said at the toss, “We’re going to bowl. (On being told that no team has won after electing to bowl first at Old Trafford) Will be a nice time for us to do that. 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. 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 by batting at three. He’s more than capable of playing there, takes nothing away from Brook.”
Australia Captain Pat Cummins also said, “We would’ve bowled first too but not a bad toss to lose, looks like a good wicket. The game is played at quite a quick pace here. We’ve got two all-rounders and Travis Head, gives us a 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.”
Australia XI for the fourth Test: David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Cameron Green, Alex Carey (wk), Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins (c), Josh Hazlewood
England XI for the fourth Test: Ben Duckett, Zak Crawley, Moeen Ali, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (c), Jonny Bairstow (wk), Chris Woakes, Mark Wood, Stuart Broad, James Anderson. (ANI)
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