Scott Borthwick is line for an England recall against Pakistan next month, with the Durham left-hander understood to be the preferred choice should Nick Compton fail to save his place in the second innings of the Lord’s Test with Sri Lanka.
Compton went into the match under pressure following a lean start to the season and was caught behind for one on an opening day in which Alastair Cook’s side reach 279 for 6 by stumps, having won the toss, following an unbeaten 107 from their in-form wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow.
The dismissal, feathering a drive off the seamer Suranga Lakmal, meant the 32-year-old Compton averages only 13.2 from 10 first-class innings this summer and while he is yet to play in a series defeat during his two spells in the England team, it leaves him battling to prevent his 16th Test cap becoming his last.
Borthwick was among the alternative options mentioned by Trevor Bayliss after the nine-wicket victory in Durham last week but is now known to be considered top of the list after impressing for his county this summer, averaging 82 from nine innings including three centuries.
The 26-year-old, who is the leading scorer across the past three English seasons, won his solitary Test cap during the last match of the 5-0 whitewash defeat to Australia in 2013-14, having been selected as a specialist leg-spinner in Sydney and placed down at No8 in the batting order.
Borthwick’s return to the team for the first Test with Pakistan at Lord’s, starting on 14 July, in the No3 position he occupies for Durham, would echo the revived career of the Australia captain, Steve Smith. He was similarly picked as a specialist wrist-spinner and featured in an Ashes defeat – England’s 2010-11 away win – before forcing his way back two years later through his batting.
While Borthwick’s bowling has been the second string to his bow since taking four wickets on his debut – despite considerable investment by the England and Wales Cricket Board – it would provide the Test side with another slow-bowling option when they playing on the turning pitches of Bangladesh and India this winter.
The venues for the second of those trips have been announced by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, with Mohali, Rajkot, Mumbai, Visakhapatnam and Chennai hosting the five Test matches, before three one-day internationals, at Pune, Cuttack and Kolkata, and Twenty20s in Bangalore, Nagpur and Kanpur.
Dates have not yet been announced, with BCCI yet to fully reveal their schedule for a packed home season that features 13 Tests against four different opponents, with Australia and New Zealand also touring as well as a one-off Test against Bangladesh that will be the country’s first on Indian soil.
