England v Pakistan 2020.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Under lockdown rules.

Start today in Manchester then two Tests in Southampton.

Followed by a couple of T20s.

Will England start dadly?

Will Pakistan be mercurial?

These are the sides Cricinfo is predicting.

1 Dom Sibley, 2 Rory Burns, 3 Joe Root (capt), 4 Ben Stokes, 5 Ollie Pope, 6 Jos Buttler (wk), 7 Sam Curran/Chris Woakes, 8 Dom Bess, 9 Stuart Broad, 10 Mark Wood/Jofra Archer, 11 James Anderson

1 Shan Masood, 2 Abid Ali, 3 Azhar Ali (capt), 4 Babar Azam, 5 Asad Shafiq, 6 Fawad Alam/Shadab Khan, 7 Mohammad Rizwan(wk), 8 Yasir Shah, 9 Shaheen Afridi, 10 Mohammad Abbas, 11 Naseem Shah

Familiar touring side.

[Arthur Crabtree]

TV umpires will call no balls. So there might be more of them.

[sussexpob]

Promises to be an interesting series, as Pakistan should bat a lot better than the Windies

[mikesiva]

Archer lucky to get a game.

Shadab at six? Is he an all rounder?

[Arthur Crabtree]

1 Dom Sibley, 2 Rory Burns, 3 Joe Root (capt), 4 Ben Stokes, 5 Ollie Pope, 6 Jos Buttler (wk), 7 Chris Woakes, 8 Dom Bess, 9 Stuart Broad, 10 Jofra Archer, 11 James Anderson

1 Shan Masood, 2 Abid Ali, 3 Azhar Ali (capt), 4 Babar Azam, 5 Asad Shafiq, 6 Shadab Khan, 7 Mohammad Rizwan(wk), 8 Yasir Shah, 9 Shaheen Afridi, 10 Mohammad Abbas, 11 Naseem Shah

Pakistan win the toss and bat.

[alfie]

Might be a good toss to win. Depends how this innings goes , I guess.

Old Trafford is supposed to be good for spinners : but it's been the pace men who have done the damage recently. Two leggies might be a bit different...

With Stokes apparently still not 100% , England probably had to play five bowlers. Does leave them potentially vulnerable though , if Pakistan score well. Tail is a bit long , given Woakes can't buy a run these days.

Anderson beating the bat a lot ; but no real alarms yet for Pakistan.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Pakistan have a similar bat/ball balance I think.

Anderson unlucky.

[sussexpob]

Archer lucky to get a game.

Shadab at six? Is he an all rounder?

He batted at 7 in 2018 when he was here, and scored a couple of 50s.

[sussexpob]

First wicekt for Archer, castled Abid

[mikesiva]

Archer strikes!

[sussexpob]

Going to be interesting to see how long Azhar Ali lasts; his record outside UAE is nothing to write home about, and hes coming off 2 years of pretty horrendous form. England will really want to open those wounds of past batting failures and get him early now, really dont want to give him a score and for him to gain confidence

[mikesiva]

Didn't last long. Out for a duck to Woakes.

[sussexpob]

Not much surpise. Hes nearly 36, another bad series here and he might want to call it a day.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Not bad for either side. Pakistan have seen off the new ball with only two down. England have a couple of wickets for not many runs.

[mikesiva]

Babar gets his half century!