BIRMINGHAM: Adil Rashid faced further pressure ahead of his controversial recall to the England Test side for their series opener against India at Edgbaston when it was announced on Tuesday he would be the lone specialist spinner in the hosts’ XI.

England confirmed that off-spinner Moeen Ali had been left out from a 13-man squad for the five-match series opener.

That leaves Yorkshire leg-spinner Rashid as England’s sole designated slow bowler, although his county colleague Joe Root, the England captain, can supplement his top-order batting with occasional off-spin.

England have also omitted uncapped Essex seamer Jamie Porter.

Top-order batsman Dawid Malan remains in the XI, with all-rounder Ben Stokes and Surrey left-arm quick Sam Curran providing seam bowling support to the veteran new-ball pairing of James Anderson and Stuart Broad in the first of the five-Test series starting Wednesday.

“Looking at the surface, we’ve decided we only want to go with one spinner, and that’s going to be Adil,” Root told reporters at Edgbaston on Tuesday. “With the amount of right-handers in what we think is going to be India’s team, he gives us a very attacking option.”

Rashid’s previous 10 Tests, the first of which was in December 2016, have yielded 38 wickets at an expensive average of 42.78.

But the 30-year-old has been brought back after impressing in recent home limited-overs series against Australia and India.

“I think he’s obviously bowling with a huge amount of confidence,” added Root.

Rashid’s recall for his 11th Test but first in England provoked a furious response given he signed a limited-overs only contract with Yorkshire for this season.

Yorkshire and England greats Geoffrey Boycott and Michael Vaughan are among those who’ve slammed the decision to call-up Rashid without him having first played any red-ball County Championship cricket this term.

Meanwhile England confirmed Jos Buttler as Root’s vice-captain for the Test series.

Buttler, who like Rashid forced his way back in on the strength of his white-ball performances, was only recalled to the Test set-up by new national selector Ed Smith for the Pakistan series earlier this season.

But having deputised for England white-ball captain Eoin Morgan, he has now been given a formal leadership position in the Test set-up too.

“He’s obviously vice-captain of the white-ball side; he thinks extremely well about the game, and has a huge amount of respect within the dressing-room,” said Root of Buttler.

“Looking at very long term, five to 10 years, I see him as someone who can really drive this team forward,” he added.

Anderson, England’s all-time leading Test wicket-taker, had been assisting Root since the start of the last Ashes after Stokes was stood down from the vice-captaincy position following an alleged late-night incident outside a Bristol nightclub in September.

Stokes’s trial on a charge of affray, which he denies, is due to commence on Monday.

As a result, the Durham star will miss the second Test at Lord’s starting on Aug 9.

India may be the world’s top-ranked Test side but they still face accusations they are lions at home and lambs abroad. But a series win in England would go some way to ridding India of that unwanted tag.

In the past five years, India have won just one of their six Test series outside of Asia, against a struggling West Indies.

Their overall Test record in England is uninspiring — six wins from 57 matches and three series victories — 1971, 1986 and 2007.

But if the current prolonged hot weather in England continues, the upcoming series may well be played on dry and dusty pitches, more akin to the surfaces that are found in India, rather than traditional green English seamers.

Also, while doubts persist about England’s ability to cope should either one of veteran new-ball duo Stuart Broad and James Anderson get injured, India do at least have some pace-bowling depth.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah may be unfit for the first Test but the likes of Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav have shown themselves to be capable operators outside of Asia.

Anderson is a master of conventional swing, but India may have the edge if conditions favour reverse-swing during what will be England’s 1,000th Test match.

“They seem to have got a good variety of bowlers and strength in depth in their pace bowling,” said England opener Alastair Cook.

“In the last ten years I’ve played them, they haven’t had the option of playing five or six different types of seamers,” added Cook, England’s all-time leading Test run-scorer, whose highest score of 294 was made against India at Edgbaston in 2011.

Meanwhile, India captain Virat Kohli, one of the outstanding batsmen of his generation, will be desperate to prove he can score runs in England.

He managed a meagre 134 in five matches during his maiden Test series in England in 2014, which India lost 3-1 with one draw.

Root, who like Kohli is at his best when leading from the front, comes into the series having converted only three out of 23 fifties since his Test-best 254 against Pakistan in 2016 into hundreds — a poor return for a player of his ability.

Teams:

ENGLAND: Alastair Cook, Keaton Jennings, Joe Root (captain), Dawid Malan, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Adil Rashid, Sam Curran, Stuart Broad, James Anderson.

INDIA (probable): Murali Vijay, K.L. Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli (captain), Ajinkya Rahane, Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav.

Umpires: Aleem Dar (Pakistan), and Chris Gaffaney (New Zealand).

TV umpire: Marais Erasmus (South Africa).

Match referee: Jeff Crowe (New Zealand).

Published in Dawn, August 1st, 2018