James Anderson Set To Miss Lord's Test vs India: Reports

Leader of England’s pace attack, James Anderson, is all but ruled out of playing in the second Test against India at Lord’s. The veteran has an injury concern, which is unlikely to be taken lightly with his long-term fitness in mind.

The 39-year-old Anderson complained of a tight quad on Wednesday, just a day prior to the start of the Test. As a result, he skipped England’s pre-match training session in order to not aggravate the injury any further. Jonny Bairstow stated that fringe players will have an opportunity to prove themselves on the biggest stage.

“It’s potentially a loss but with that comes an opportunity for other people. When we’ve seen that previously in the summer, in the Pakistan series, there were opportunities that arose for other people coming in and they rose to those challenges,” Bairstow said.

Stuart Broad ruled out of the entire series against India

To compound England’s misery further, Stuart Broad was earlier sent to undergo an MRI scan after sustaining an injury to his calf. The results came back on Wednesday, with the scan confirming a tear in the pacer’s right calf. As a result, he was ruled out of the LV=Insurance Test series against India.

Broad suffered the injury during warmup routines on Tuesday. He was unable to attend the training session that followed on Tuesday afternoon. With these double setbacks, England is likely to head into a Test without either Broad or Anderson for the first time since 2016.

In Broad’s absence, the bright prospect, Saqib Mahmood, was called up as a cover. Without Anderson and Broad, the bowling attack looks extremely inexperienced. Sam Curran and Ollie Robinson will have to take the reins, with Mark Wood, and Saqib Mahmood or Craig Overton finishing up the four-pronged pace attack.

Moeen Ali has also been called up so it’s likely he will occupy a spot in the team. Top-order batsman Haseeb Hameed is also vying for the opening slot, and with Ollie Pope back to match-fitness, skipper Joe Root has a lot of options to ponder over.

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