DHAKA: Spinner Zafar Ansari will make his England Test debut in the second and final match against Bangladesh while Stuart Broad is rested as Alastair Cook rotates his side ahead of the tour to India.

Ansari was chosen ahead of his club team-mate Gareth Batty, the off-spinner who took 4-116 in the first Test win at Chittagong, on his Test return after an 11-year-absence.

Broad, who will be replaced by Steven Finn for the match, which starts on Friday, faces a wait until next month’s tour of India to play his 100th Test match.

“Clearly we had the opportunity to not rotate, but the last thing we wanted was to go to India with too many people who haven’t played much cricket,” Cook told reporters on Thursday.

“We don’t know a huge amount about either Batty or Ansari in terms of Test cricket... but they will get one Test each and that is important.”

Slow left-armer Ansari, claimed 22 wickets in 10 matches for Surrey in the County Championship and will hope to form a potent bowling threat along with off-spinner Moeen Ali and leg-spinner Adil Rashid.

“One thing I’ve seen in the nets is he [Ansari] can bowl at good pace with good control,” Cook said at the pre-match press conference. “It will be really interesting to see how he goes. He can also bat as well, which is good.”

The 24-year-old Ansari was named in England’s squad for the three-Test series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates last year, but was injured hours after his first Test call-up.

Cook told his pre-match press conference that fast bowler Jake Ball had also been in contention to replace Chris Woakes, who bowled just 14 overs in the first game.

“In an ideal way we would have liked Jake to have a game as well but we feel as if Chris Woakes hasn’t played a huge amount of cricket on the subcontinent, didn’t have a huge workload in the last game,” he said. “We feel it’ll be beneficial for him to experience these conditions.”

Traditionally, the Dhaka pitch has offered more for the batsmen than Chittagong, but Cook said he expects a similar challenge to the one they faced in the first Test.

“You don’t look too much into stats but historically Dhaka spins less than Chittagong,” he added. “I have a feeling that might not be the case in this game.”

After winning the nail-biting first Test in Chittagong by just 22 runs, the tourists will be keen to extend their 100 percent record against their hosts in Dhaka.

England’s win in Chittagong was due in large part to the batting heroics of the middle order, with Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow and Ben Stokes all playing crucial knocks to repair the damage from top-order collapses.

The top four batsmen — Cook, Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Gary Ballance — managed a combined total of just 96 runs in both innings.

Captain Mushfiqur Rahim urged Bangladesh to put aside their hurt over just failing to clinch a first-ever Test victory over England and learn to cope in high-pressure situations.

After running England so close, the eventual outcome could have had a devastating effect on the players but Mushfiqur said the team was in good spirits after putting up such a close fight but now needed to learn how to seal the deal when match-winning opportunities open up.

“We are still hurting from the loss in Chittagong so it is best to move on from that game,” said Mushfiqur. “We know that had we given one percent more, the Test would have been in our favour. We would like to take the positives from that game, and use them in Dhaka.

“Our main challenge will be playing well consistently four to five days, so that if they create an opportunity we can grab that.

“Hopefully we won’t let that opportunity go this time. Our first target will be to create that situation.

“Our performance and the fight we put up in the first Test wasn’t unexpected. We will also try to cope with the pressure of expectation.”

The hosts played some impressive cricket during the match, with the teenage debutant Mehedi Hasan taking 6-80 in England’s first innings on a pitch that favoured Bangladesh’s spin heavy bowling line-up.

Bangladesh’s line-up will see at least one change, with 27-year-old Subashis Roy likely to be brought in after paceman Shafiul Islam was rested.

Bangladesh have also called up batsman Mosaddek Hossain as back-up to Sabbir Rahman, who was suffering from a stomach problem after his valiant innings of 64 in the second innings of the first Test

Teams:

BANGLADESH (from): Mushfiqur Rahim (captain), Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Imrul Kayes, Mominul Haque, Mahmudullah Riyad, Shakib Al Hasan, Shuvagata Hom, Sabbir Rahman, Mehedi Hasan, Mosaddek Hossain, Subashis Roy, Taijul Islam, Kamrul Islam, Nurul Hasan.

ENGLAND: Alastair Cook (captain), Ben Duckett, Joe Root, Gary Ballance, Moeen Ali, Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow, Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid, Zafar Ansari, Steven Finn.

Umpires: Kumar Dharmasena (Sri Lanka) and Sundaram Ravi (India).

TV umpire: Chris Gaffaney (New Zealand).

Match referee: Ranjan Madugalle (Sri Lanka).

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2016