LIVE - ENGLAND vs PAKISTAN - 1ST TEST MATCH 2020 - 5TH AUGUST 2020

LIVE - ENGLAND vs PAKISTAN - 1ST TEST MATCH 2020 #ENGvPAK #ENGLAND #PAKISTAN England v Pakistan, 1st Test Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester Wednesday, 5 August; 11:00am local, 10:00am GMT After two convincing wins over West Indies in the last fortnight, England will hope to hit the ground running as they meet Pakistan, a side against whom they haven't won a Test series at home since 2011. The 2-1 win over West Indies took England to third in the ICC World Test Championship points table after they gained 80 points. Two more wins in this series will take them above Australia who is placed at No.2. Pakistan, on the other hand, are in fifth position and even a single win would put them level on points with New Zealand. The visiting side have been in England for a while and have played two intra-squad warm-up matches. But Misbah-ul-Haq, the head coach, has made it clear that performances in the warm-up game will not influence the starting XI too much. It will be interesting to see whether Sohail Khan, who picked up two five-wicket hauls in the two games and has a history of performing well in England with five-wicket hauls at Birmingham and The Oval in 2016, makes the cut in the starting XI. The selectors might consider Sohail ahead of Mohammad Abbas, who averages 66.2 in his last two away Test series in South Africa and Australia, for a place in the starting XI. However, Abbas himself performed reasonably well in the warm-ups and picked up 10 wickets in two Tests on Pakistan's previous tour of England in 2018. With the Manchester surface expected to take turn, Misbah has hinted at playing two spinners. Pakistan might look to play three seamers, and Yasir Shah with Shadab Khan, a spin-bowling all-rounder. England, particularly their pace attack, are brimming with confidence after the recent series win. The composition of the pace attack could once again be under scrutiny. They are likely to retain the same team from the last Test against West Indies and possibly rotate the seamers over the course of the series. If Ben Stokes is fit to bowl, they might ponder leaving a fast bowler out to play an additional batsman in Zak Crawley.