{"id":633554,"date":"2025-12-15T08:36:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T08:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/633554\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T08:36:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T08:36:22","slug":"england-announce-playing-xi-for-3rd-ashes-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/633554\/","title":{"rendered":"England announce playing XI for 3rd Ashes Test"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Adelaide [Australia], December 15 (ANI): Ben Stokes-led England have announced their playing XI for the third match of the Ashes against Australia at Adelaide Oval, making a single change as Josh Tongue replaces Gus Atkinson in the pace attack, as per ESPNcricinfo.<\/p>\n<p>Notably, England opted not to include Shoaib Bashir, despite the Adelaide pitch promising to be the most spin-friendly of this Ashes series.<\/p>\n<p>Trailing 2-0, England were always expected to make changes for their must-win Test. However, after head coach Brendon McCullum publicly backed a struggling top seven earlier, he and captain Ben Stokes have chosen to make only one adjustment, with Gus Atkinson dropping out.<\/p>\n<p>Atkinson has struggled throughout the tour. He has taken just three wickets from 54 overs at an average of 78.66&#8211;the highest among England&#8217;s bowlers.<\/p>\n<p>England have turned to Josh Tongue. Tongue will earn his seventh Test cap since debuting in the 2023 home season, having claimed 31 wickets at an average of exactly 30.<\/p>\n<p>This will be Tongue&#8217;s second outing against Australia, having previously played at Lord&#8217;s in the last Ashes, where he took five wickets in the match, including dismissing Steven Smith twice&#8211;though the first came when Smith was on 110. The 28-year-old has taken Smith&#8217;s wicket four times overall: once for Worcestershire in the 2023 County Championship when Smith was representing Sussex and again in this year&#8217;s edition of The Hundred.<\/p>\n<p>Tongue&#8217;s most recent Test appearance was in England&#8217;s final match of the summer, where he claimed 5 for 125 against India&#8211;his second five-wicket haul&#8211;finishing as England&#8217;s leading wicket-taker of the series with 19 scalps from just three matches.<\/p>\n<p>England playing XI for Adelaide Test against Australia:<\/p>\n<p>Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (c), Jamie Smith (wk), Will Jacks, Brydon Carse, Jofra Archer, Josh Tongue. (ANI)<\/p>\n<p>(This content is sourced from a syndicated feed and is published as received. The Tribune assumes no responsibility or liability for its accuracy, completeness, or content.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adelaide [Australia], December 15 (ANI): Ben Stokes-led England have announced their playing XI for the third match of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[23382,23273,43331,48604,748,393,7504,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-633554","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-ashes","9":"tag-australia-cricket","10":"tag-ben-stokes","11":"tag-brendon-mccullum","12":"tag-britain","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-england-cricket","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115722674758277662","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}