England have announced their playing XI for the one-off Test against Zimbabwe, starting May 22 at Trent Bridge. Essex pacer Sam Cook will make his long-awaited Test debut while Josh Tongue returns to the fold after a couple of years with all his injury-related issues subsiding. Jamie Smith has returned after missing the New Zealand series being on paternal leave, while Ollie Pope and Zak Crawley have been able to retain their spots for now.
"Essex fast bowler Sam Cook is set to make his England debut, while James Rew and Matthew Potts miss out," an ECB statement said. Cook has been in terrific red-ball form and might have made his debut last year only if not for England siding with the extra pace of left-armer Josh Hull. Cook scalped 43 wickets for Essex in the County Championship last year at an average of 17.3 while having claimed 227 wickets in the past five seasons, the most in the Championship by any bowler.
"I'm obviously very excited about getting the nod and getting out there," Cook told reporters at Trent Bridge on Tuesday. "It's any young cricketer's dream to pull on the Test shirt for England. So it's something hopefully that comes to fruition and I'm really, really looking forward to it."
With no Mark Wood, Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse and Jofra Archer for the Zimbabwe Test, England will obviously lack some experience but coach Brendon McCullum saw this as an opportunity while acknowledging that the pace attack is relatively new with Gus Atkinson, who made his debut last year leading the attack.
"We've made made no secret of us wanting to build a battery of fast bowlers, knowing that when you're you're dealing at the elite level and you're asking guys to play at 100% and leave it all out there, there's going to be things which happen which means guys are going to miss out.
"For us to walk into this Test match week, I feel like we've got a nice varied attack. It's got some youth, and it's got some inexperience, but these guys have also been around this group now for a decent amount of time, and they know how to operate," McCullum added. The one-off Test will be followed by a short white-ball assignment for England against the West Indies before the five India Tests.
England playing XI for one-off Test against Zimbabwe: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes, Jamie Smith (wk), Gus Atkinson, Sam Cook, Josh Tongue, Shoaib Bashir