In an extraordinary and possibly unprecedented move, England and Pakistan have been told they will play their second Test on exactly the same pitch on which 2,123 balls were bowled and 1,599 runs scored last week – one already pockmarked at both ends with footmarks and deep cracks.
But though the pitch may be the same, the Pakistan team will not. The fallout from another humbling defeat in the first game of the series, the side’s sixth in a row, has led to the Pakistan Cricket Board shaking up both its selection committee – adding three new members including the former Test umpire Aleem Dar – and the playing lineup, with Babar Azam and Shaheen Shah Afridi the most high‑profile casualties.
