It is a case of something old, something new for England in the second Test against India after Ben Stokes named his team on Thursday, 24 hours out from the toss. Jimmy Anderson and the uncapped Shoaib Bashir come into the attack in Visakhapatnam, with Mark Wood and the injured Jack Leach stepping aside.
Having taken a second look at the surface at the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Stokes is convinced the balance that established a 1-0 lead in Hyderabad remains the way to go. Not that the two changes made by the England captain and the head coach, Brendon McCullum, are straight swaps: Anderson’s craft replaces the pace of Wood and Bashir, a right-arm off-spinner, turns it the other way from his Somerset teammate Leach.
