RAWALPINDI: England captain Ben Stokes won the toss and elected to bat in the opening test against Pakistan on Thursday, the match going ahead as scheduled despite a virus having swept through the visitors’ camp in Rawalpindi during the week.

The touring side made one change to their original playing 11, replacing Ben Foakes with Will Jacks, who makes his test debut along with all-rounder Liam Livingstone.

“We’ve had some illness going round but we were really excited to get started,” Stokes said after winning the toss.

“It’s not been ideal obviously, to start our tour like this, but hopefully we’ll be fine.”

Pakistan named four debutants — Saud Shakeel, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Ali and Zahid Mehmood — in their playing 11.

England will also play in Multan and Karachi in what is their first test tour of Pakistan since 2005.

The start of the series was thrown into doubt a day earlier after several members of the touring squad fell ill.

“The ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) has informed us that they are in a position to field an eleven and, as such, the first Test will commence as per schedule today,” PCB said in a statement today.

An ECB spokesman said Wednesday the virus was not Covid-19 related, with players experiencing vomiting and diarrhoea.

Playing XIs

England: Ben Stokes (c), Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope (wk), Joe Root, Harry Brook, Will Jacks, Liam Livingstone, Ollie Robinson, Jack Leach, James Anderson.

Pakistan: Babar Azam (c), Abdullah Shafique, Imam Ul Haq, Azhar Ali, Saud Shakeel, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Agha Salman, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Ali, Zahid, Mahmood