Rawalpindi: England captain Ben Stokes won the toss and elected to bat in the opening Test against Pakistan on Thursday, with the match going ahead as scheduled despite a virus outbreak in the visitors’ camp in Rawalpindi during the week.
The touring side made one change to their original playing XI, replacing Ben Fox with Will Jacks, who makes his Test debut alongside all-rounder Liam Livingstone.
Stokes said after winning the toss that we had a bit of sickness but we were excited to start.
“Obviously it wasn’t ideal to start our tour like this, but hopefully we’ll be fine.”
Pakistan have added four debutants in their XI, Saud Shakeel, Haris Rauf, Muhammad Ali and Zahid Mehmood.
England will also play in Multan and Karachi, Pakistan’s first Test tour since 2005.
Playing XIs
England: Ben Stokes (c), Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope (wk), Joe Root, Harry Brook, Will Jacks, Liam Livingstone, Ollie Robinson, Jack Leach, James Anderson.
Pakistan: Babar Azam (c), Abdullah Shafique, Imam Ul Haq, Azhar Ali, Saud Shakeel, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Agha Salman, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Ali, Zahid, Mahmood
