Pakistan cricket team has not won a single test match at home for the last two and a half years. Recently, it also had to face a shameful defeat against Bangladesh but now it has got a golden opportunity. The Test series between Pakistan and England is starting in Multan from Monday 7th October, but the news of a big relief for the Pakistani team is that the England team will enter the match without its star captain Ben Stokes. Ben Stokes, who has been struggling with fitness for the last two months, has been ruled out of the first match of the series. In his place, Olly Pope will continue to captain the team. However, the danger for Pakistan has not been completely averted because a 29-year-old fast bowler will make his debut for England, who had recently troubled Australia a lot.

Stokes out, Pakistan has a chance

The first match of the 3-match Test series will start on 7 October at Multan Cricket Stadium. The selection committee of England had definitely chosen captain Ben Stokes for this tour but there were doubts about his fitness. Stokes suffered a hamstring injury during a match of The Hundred in the month of August, due to which he was ruled out of the Test series against Sri Lanka. Since then he has been working on his rehabilitation. However, even without being declared fully fit, he got a place in the England team and now he will not be able to play the first Test match.

There is some relief here for Pakistan that two years ago, under the captaincy of Stokes, the England team had toured Pakistan and made a clean sweep in the Test series. It will be interesting to see how the England team performs without Stokes this time. Vice-captain Olly Pope took command in the Sri Lanka series and captured the series by winning the first 2 matches but was defeated by Sri Lanka in the last test. In such a situation, is the England team ready to bounce back from that defeat? This will be monitored and Pakistan will have the opportunity to take advantage of this. However, the Pakistani team itself is coming after suffering a 0-2 clean sweep at home against Bangladesh, so it is difficult to say how high its confidence will be.

Debut of 29 year old bowler

As far as the playing eleven is concerned, not much changes have been seen in it. Experienced spinner Jack Leach has returned to the team, who played the last Test on the India tour earlier this year. Shoaib Bashir has been included as the second spinner. Joe Root can play the role of third spinner.

England has taken a slightly surprising decision and included 3 fast bowlers in the playing eleven. Apart from Chris Woakes and Gus Atkinson, the newest player in this is Braydon Carse. 29 year old Carrs is the fastest bowler among the three pacers of England. He will make his debut with this test. Kars has 127 wickets in first class cricket in 48 matches at an average of 33.78. However, recently he had a strong performance in the ODI series against Australia and took 8 wickets in 5 matches.

England's playing eleven

Ollie Pope (captain), Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Jamie Smith (wk), Chris Woakes, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jack Leak, Brydon Carse