England vs Pakistan: Shocked Gary Ballance caught out by Test recall while grocery shopping

Poor form: Ballance was dropped during England’s Ashes series last year
Tom Collomosse8 July 2016

England batsman Gary Ballance has admitted being pleasantly surprised by his return to the side for the First Test against Pakistan.

The 26-year-old was busy grocery shopping when the news reached him. He was dropped during England’s Ashes series last year due to his poor form but has been brought back to replace Nick Compton, who is taking a break from the game after a woeful run.

“It’s all come as a bit of a surprise,” Ballance said. “It’s a great feeling to be back, especially when you’ve been out of the side for a while.

“I was just doing a bit of grocery shopping when I got the call from national selector James Whitaker — just a standard Thursday morning!”

Ballance is likely to slot into the middle order rather than bat at No3 at Lord’s next Thursday and hopes his modest domestic season could improve in an England shirt.

“I’ve felt good the last few weeks,” he said. “I’ve been playing well, I just haven’t got that big score.”

Ballance (right) will be getting help in that quest from the Lord’s wicket if fellow batsman David Warner’s theory is correct.

The Australia opener blames flat pitches rather than bats with thicker edges for giving batsmen the upper hand in Test cricket.

Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting raised concerns about the rising imbalance between bat and ball and called for restrictions on bat sizes in the game’s longest format.

Ponting said he would raise the issue at the Marylebone Cricket Club world cricket committee meeting at Lord’s next week and found support from Australia fast bowler Josh Hazlewood.

But Warner said: “I think the wickets are pretty much dictating the Test cricket arena at the moment.

“A lot of batsmen are scoring a lot of runs; you can’t specifically come out and say it is the big bats, because everyone is scoring a lot of runs.

“It is a credit to the bat maker. He’s told he can use one cleft of wood. If he can use his brains and technology to make a bat light and large, then it’s credit to them.”

“If you go back to the Ashes and have a look at my leading edges, I think it probably didn’t help me,” Warner said, breaking into a laugh, in an obvious reference to the amount of times he was caught in the slips. “So there’s pros and cons.”

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