Opportunity will knock for England’s seamer supporting cast should they be without both main men in the second Test
You have to go back to the visit of West Indies to Old Trafford in 2007 – the summer when India last won a Test series on these shores – for the previous time England went into a “live” home Test without either Jimmy Anderson or Stuart Broad at their disposal.
The pair were rested at Edgbaston in 2012, West Indies again the opposition, but that match was a dead rubber. The second Test that begins on Thursday at Lord’s, where the sun is set to shine and the series with India is locked at 0-0 after the soggy end at Trent Bridge, sees England staring into a future they have long been agonising over.
