Steven Finn has been included in England’s 13-man squad ahead of the fourth Test against South Africa at Old Trafford. Finn replaces Mark Wood, who was ruled out of the rest of the series ahead of The Oval Test due to injury. Toby Roland-Jones made his Test debut in place of Wood at Trent Bridge and finished with 8 wickets as England romped to a 239-run win to go 2-1 up in the series.
The fourth and final Test between England and South Africa will begin from August 4 at Old Trafford, Manchester. England handed Test debuts to Tom Westley and Dawid Malan. In the second Test. While Westley capitalised with a fifty in the second innings, Malan, on the other hand, scored just 1 and 10 in his two outings. England coach Trevor Bayliss hints at playing one batsman less in the next Test as Moeen Ali and Ben Stokes have been doing well as batsmen as well.
“I’m still of the view we don’t need more than seven batters,” Bayliss told Sky Sports. “We’ve got three guys like Ben Stokes, (wicketkeeper) Jonny Bairstow and Moeen Ali who give us a lot of options, so on this occasion, we looked at the conditions, saw it was a bit green here and played the extra batsman.
“There wasn’t a great deal of spin, but that could be different somewhere else,” the England coach added.
England squad for 4th against South Africa: Alastair Cook, Keaton Jennings, Tom Westley, Joe Root (c), Dawid Malan, Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Moeen Ali, Toby Roland-Jones, Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Liam Dawson, Steven Finn.