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“If England win the toss, they’ll bat, right?” says Francis Barton. “Dry, hot, good pitch, possible cloud on Sunday, possible fourth-innings turn. You’ve got to bat… right? But Stokes loves to chase. Cummins would definitely bat first. What do you think? Ridiculously excited about this series.”
All logic says bat first, so I fully expect Ben Stokes to … bat, actually, as he went away from chasing over the winter and it would feel damagingly ostentatious to bowl first on a dry, flat pitch – especially given what Nathan Lyon did on the final day at Edgbaston in 2019. But I don’t say this with complete confidence.
