Pak vs. Eng: England wins the toss and decides to bat in first Test

• England captain Ben Stokes won the toss and decided to bat in the first test against Pakistan on Thursday
• Despite a virus that had swept through the visitors’ camp in Rawalpindi earlier in the week
• The game went on as scheduled

The touring team changed one player from their starting lineup, adding all-arounder Liam Livingstone and Will Jacks in place of Ben Foakes, who made his test debut.

Stokes remarked after flipping the coin, “We’ve had some illness going around, but we were really thrilled to get started.”

To begin our tour in this way has obviously not been ideal, but maybe everything will work out.

In their playing 11, Pakistan named four debutants: Saud Shakeel, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Ali, and Zahid Mehmood.

This will be England’s first test visit of Pakistan since 2005, and they will also play at Multan and Karachi.

Squad:

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

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