Fawad Alam makes long-awaited return for Pakistan

The second Test between England and Pakistan will be live streamed in Australia on cricket.com.au and the CA Live app by signing up for a free Cricket ID. The match will also be broadcast on Foxtel and Kayo Sports

After more than a decade on the sidelines, Fawad Alam makes his return to Test cricket for the second match against England, starting tonight.

Fawad comes into the XI for Shadab Khan, with Pakistan making just the one change after captain Azhar Ali won the toss and opted to bat first.

England dropped Jofra Archer, the paceman paying the price for patchy form with England also eager to strengthen their batting with Ben Stokes out of the side.

Stokes' absence, having flown to New Zealand, the country of his birth and where his parents still live, for family reasons opened the door for Zak Crawley to resume his Test career, and will slot in at No.3, moving Root back down the order to his preferred No.4.

Allrounder Sam Curran comes in to England's line-up in place of Archer, but the talk of the morning was the return of Fawad to Pakistan's side, having been sidelined for an astonishing 88 Test matches.

With less grass on the pitch at the Rose Bowl, Pakistan opted to play just the one front-line leg-spinner and dropped Shadab Khan to pave the way for Fawad's return.

Fawad scored a century in his debut Test against Sri Lanka in July 2009 but was dropped just two matches later and hasn't been picked since, his last Test coming against New Zealand almost 11 years ago.

Despite averaging more than 56 at first-class level including 34 centuries, the left-hander had been a Test outcast for a decade before returning to the Test squad late last year.

Fawad’s absence of 10 years and 258 days is the second longest interval between Tests for a Pakistan player, and the second longest this century for players from all nations.

Gareth Batty's return to the England Test side in 2016 ended a wait of more than 11 years, while former Pakistan left-hander Younis Ahmed, who copped a lengthy ban from international cricket in 1973 for touring South Africa during the apartheid era, had to wait 17 years and 111 days between the second and third Tests of his career, which remains the national record.

The all-time 'record' belongs to John Traicos, whose third career Test came for South Africa against Australia in 1970 just before their ban from international cricket. It was 22 years and 222 days later before Traicos played his fourth Test, this time for Zimbabwe against India.

Veteran seamer James Anderson has also been backed to continue his pursuit of 600 Test wickets and recover from a below-par season thus far, after rumours he was on the verge of retirement erupted earlier this week.

Anderson finished with the first Test with match figures of 1-97 at Old Trafford last week, his lowest return in his past 17 home Tests (not including the first Ashes Test last year, when he was injured after just four overs).

Over the course of the summer, he has taken six wickets in three Tests at an average of 41.16.

The veteran of 154 Tests quashed retirement rumours this week and captain Joe Root backed the 38-year-old to respond.

"It would be very silly for us to write someone like Jimmy off," Root said on match eve.

"To question Jimmy's ability and his record - do that at your own peril.

"There's a reason he's got so many wickets over such a long period of time: it's because he's a consistent performer. I don't think it'll be long until he's back in the wickets big time."

Stokes withdrew from England's biosecure Test bubble after the opening Test win against Pakistan and has travelled to New Zealand, where his parents still live, for family reasons.

The 22-year-old Crawley will play just his seventh Test, re-inserted into the line-up at No.3 to allow Root to move back down to his favoured No.4 spot.

He had played the opening two Tests against the West Indies before losing his place with three scores below 12 and one half-century in his four innings.

England XI: Rory Burns, Dom Sibley, Zak Crawley, Joe Root (c), Ollie Pope, Jos Buttler (wk), Chris Woakes, Sam Curran, Dom Bess, Stuart Broad, James Anderson

Pakistan XI: Shan Masood, Abid Ali, Azhar Ali (c), Babar Azam, Asad Shafiq, Fawad Alam, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Yasir Shah, Mohammad Abbas, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah