Dawson to play first England Test in eight years

Liam Dawson last played a Test for England in 2017

Spinner Liam Dawson will play his first Test in eight years after being named in the England team to face India at Old Trafford on Wednesday.

Left-armer Dawson, 35, returns as the replacement for off-spinner Shoaib Bashir, who suffered a broken finger in the thrilling third-Test win at Lord's.

Pace bowler Chris Woakes keeps his place, with Gus Atkinson not risked to make a comeback after two months out with a hamstring injury.

England are 2-1 up and will win the series if they take the fourth Test in Manchester. They have not won a five-Test series since 2018.

Hampshire's Dawson will win his fourth Test cap, his third coming against South Africa in July 2017.

England have played 102 Tests since Dawson last appeared. Only six other players in history have gone more Tests between caps.

While Dawson will provide reliable slow left-arm, he also boosts England's lower-order batting. He owns 18 first-class hundreds and his average of 35.29 outstrips opener Zak Crawley.

Part of the squad that won the 2019 World Cup, his international career appeared to be over. After fleeting appearances in white-ball cricket in 2022, he went more than three years without another call-up.

At the beginning of this summer, he said he was "realistic" about his England prospects, only to receive a recall for the T20 series against West Indies in May.

He now gets his chance in the Test side, leap-frogging fellow left-armer Jack Leach, who was part of England's squads during the winter and has a central contract.

"He brings experience and guile," batter Harry Brook told BBC Sport. "He's very skilful.

"He's been around the block, played hundreds of games and he's a great bloke. He's very competitive and he's a very good player.

"He was very nervous before his T20 comeback and I'm sure he'll be nervous this week. I'm sure he'll let his experience and skills take over."

England XI for fourth Test v India: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (captain), Jamie Smith (wicketkeeper), Liam Dawson, Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse, Jofra Archer.

Woakes has struggled to make an impact in the first three Tests, though did have his most successful match at Lord's, taking four wickets.

He gets the nod over Atkinson partly because of his record on this ground. The 36-year-old averages almost 37 with the bat and 17 with the ball in Manchester.

Atkinson was put through a fitness test at Old Trafford on Monday. He has not played professionally since injuring his hamstring in the one-off Test against Zimbabwe in May.

He was deemed fit enough if required, but given the other options in the squad and the fact Atkinson has played only one day of club cricket in two months, there was no need for England to take a risk.

Atkinson will now return to Surrey. The county champions have a fixture away at Yorkshire, beginning on Tuesday, but had already told their players of a starting XI before they became aware of Atkinson's potential availability.

Like England, Surrey were wary of selecting Atkinson after his lengthy spell out. Jamie Overton was already due to play his first first-class match in two months, so adding Atkinson would have meant two seamers feeling their way back to fitness.

Atkinson will instead build up his match-sharpness for the second XI against Somerset on the same day.

Any slim chance that fellow pace bowler Mark Wood could return for the fifth Test following knee surgery is now over. Wood is instead targeting the white-ball matches against South Africa at the end of the summer.

India will make at least one change to the side beaten at Lord's, after all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy was ruled out of the rest of the series with a knee injury.

Wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant batted in the nets on Monday and looks to have recovered from the finger injury that hampered him in the third Test.

There is yet no decision on Jasprit Bumrah. The star pace bowler was set to play only three of the five Tests and has so far featured in two.

Following a week of rest between the third and fourth Tests, the tourists must surely be tempted to unleash Bumrah in order to keep the series alive.

India have not won any of the nine Tests they have played in Manchester, dating back to 1936.

England have lost only two of the 20 Tests they have played on this ground this century.