The 27-year-old pace sensation Sam Cook will join forces with Gus Atkinson, Josh Tongue, and spinner Shoaib Bashir to make a new bowling sprint. This match is Zimbabwe’s first Test in England since 2003 and will kick off a busy international cricket summer. Edgbaston will host the first white-ball international on Thursday, May 29.
Cook is a classical seam bowler, and his selection follows a brilliant championship season, where he got 227 wickets in five years, more than any other seam bowler. The three-man pace attack of Cook, Tongue, and Atkinson all possess a paltry 13 Test caps between them, making for England’s least experienced pace attack in 22 years.
It will be the second in a row without any of Woakes, Anderson, or Broad, who have been the mainstay bowlers in England at home. Top pace bowlers Woakes and Mark Wood are injured, and adding pace to the attack is Nottinghamshire’s Tongue, who is back for only his second Test since the 2023 Ashes.
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The Zimbabwe Test is key for England red-ball cricket, with a five-Test series coming up against India, including a Test at Edgbaston, and then the Ashes in Australia later in the year.
England Playing XI: Crawley, Duckett, Pope, Root, Brook, Stokes (capt), Smith (wk), Atkinson, Tongue, Cook, Bashir.
