England have announced their team for the 4th Test against India. Liam Dawson, 35, comes in for the injured Shoaib Bashir and there are no other changes.
Bashir hurt his left hand while trying to field a ball off his own bowling from Ravindra Jadeja in the Lord’s Test. Despite the injury he stayed on the field and took the final wicket of Mohammed Siraj to help England win by 22 runs. He’s had surgery and will be out for a few weeks.
Dawson got the nod over Jack Leach, Rehan Ahmed and all-rounder Jacob Bethell. England have decided not to bring in pacer Gus Atkinson even though he’s recovered from his hamstring injury. Jofra Archer is back in the team after Lord’s.
England’s 11 for 4th Test: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (c), Jamie Smith (wk), Liam Dawson, Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse and Jofra Archer.
What does Liam Dawson bring?
Dawson has been in great form in England’s domestic scene with 148 first-class wickets at 26.1 in the last three years. He attacks the ball with flight and wants to force mistakes from the batters.
He was struggling before this period but made some big changes working with Hampshire coach Graeme Welch.
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When Pop Welch came to Hampshire, Daws had his own method of bowling, Dawson’s teammate Keith Barker told the Daily Mail recently. “He was always our main spinner but he didn’t get as many wickets as he wanted. Now he has a wicket-taking mindset. He gives the ball a little more flight which helps. When I got here six years ago I think he saw his job as keeping the run-rate down. Now he’s not happy if he doesn’t bowl well or take enough wickets.
Dawson is also a good batter with over 10,000 runs in First-Class cricket at 35.29. He’ll add more depth to the team.
