Adil Rashid the casualty as England consider swapping spin for seam ahead of Bangladesh clash

England
will consider playing only one spinner in England’s clash with Bangladesh on Saturday
with Adil Rashid missing out on a spot in Cardiff.

Despite being England’s top spinner since the 2015 World Cup, Rashid, 31, has had a lacklustre start to the 2019 World Cup campaign taking 0-43 in the recent defeat against Pakistan and only one wicket in the two matches so far.

As a result, this decision may force Joe
Root to act as a back-up spinner to Moeen Ali, on a wicket that seems set to favour
pace bowlers.

Root who has 20 wickets in comparison to Rashid’s
133 and Moeen Ali’s 83, has been known to take occasional wickets for England.

The possible omission of Rashid allows England to add to their pace attack with Liam Plunkett being recalled after being dropped for the game against Pakistan or Tom Curran being given his first match of the competition as Eoin Morgan told BBC Sport the chance of using four seamers.

From the two matches at the Cardiff Wales
Stadium in the competition 22 of the 30 wickets have fallen to seamers on green
surfaces and despite the heavy rain on Friday, Morgan admitted on Thursday the
wicket seemed to have “extra green grass.”

He said: “The wicket that we saw
yesterday looked similar to the wickets that have been played on here
previously.

“With weather around as well, there’s
a chance we will look into changing the team.”

England had entered the tournament as
favourites for the first time, however poor fielding cost them the game against
Pakistan in Nottingham.

Bangladesh will be the only team who
England fans may not have worried too much about recently, however victories
over the West Indies and Ireland in the Tri-Series and South Africa in the World
Cup tournament make this game a closely contested match.

Both teams have won one and lost one in
their two World Cup games so far with Bangladesh losing to New Zealand by two
wickets at the Oval.

However, Bangladesh have had the hoodoo
over England having beaten them in their past two World Cup matches, most
recently in last World Cup defeat in Adelaide which resulted in an early exit.

Despite those two past successes Bangladesh
captain Mashrafe Mortaza said: “It’s a new, fresh match. We have beaten them
at the last two World Cups. It doesn’t mean that we will make it happen again.

“There is the chance, and for that we have to play at our best.”

JOTI KAUR