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Old Trafford Manchester pitch report: Old Trafford cricket ground pitch report for England vs South Africa 2nd Test

Gurpreet Singh
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Old Trafford Manchester pitch report: Old Trafford cricket ground pitch report for England vs South Africa 2nd Test

Old Trafford Manchester pitch report: With an aim to get back to winning ways, England take on the Proteas in the 2nd Test match tomorrow.

After suffering a humbling innings defeat against South Africa in the first Test match at Lord’s, England are all set to get back to their winning ways, with the second of the three-match Test series scheduled to commence from tomorrow onwards at the Emirates Old Trafford, in Manchester.

Having lost his maiden Test match ever since his appointment as England’s Test skipper, the margin of defeat would have perhaps pinched Ben Stokes a bit harder, especially after South Afican skipper Dean Elgar seemed to almost rubbish their most-talked about ‘Bazball’ approach ahead of the Lord’s Test, while even challenging the same against their pace-attack.

As things turned out, the Proteas pacers managed to scalp 18 of the 20  English wickets, to decimate the hosts by an innings margin.

As has been their custom off-late in the format, England have named their Playing XI for the second Test, with all-rounder Ollie Robinson replacing pacer Matthew Potts from the Lord’s Test.

ALSO READ: Weather at Old Trafford cricket ground tomorrow for 2nd Test

Old Trafford Manchester pitch report

The Emirates Old Trafford is set to host its first Test match since August 2020, after the hosts defeated Pakistan by 3 wickets during the first of the three-match Test series.

England boast of a good record against the Proteas at this venue, having lost just one out of the nine Test matches here, and with four wins and as many draws.

The past few Test matches at the Old Trafford have been high scoring ones, and a fresh pitch after a two-year-gap is likely to act no different.

Team batting first will likely target a score at least in the vicinity of the 350-run mark. On the flip side, the pacers are likely to extract significant purchase majorly on the first Day’s play, on what overall will be a track which will assist the batters.

The spinners too, are likely to come into the game as the match progresses, with the pitch at this venue developing the tendency to break and thus slow down a tad.

Chasing teams have won just one of the last eight matches in Manchester. Thus, it would be interesting to see whether England do opt to chase if they win the Toss tomorrow.

About the author

Gurpreet Singh

Gurpreet Singh

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Gurpreet Singh is a Cricket writer at The Sportsrush. His platonic relationship with sports had always been there since childhood, but Cricket managed to strike a special, intimate nerve of his heart. Although his initial dream of playing the sport at the highest level couldn't come to fruition, Gurpreet did represent the state of Jharkhand at the under-14 level. However, almost like taking a pledge to never let the undying passion for Cricket fade away even a tad, he made sure to continue the love relationship by assigning the field of journalism as an indirect Cupid. He thus, first finished his bachelor's in journalism and then pursued the PG Diploma course in English journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC). Soon after and since 2019, he has been working at The Sportsrush. Apart from sports, he takes keen interest in politics, and in understanding women and gender-related issues.

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