England recall Knight for second Test 

London, May 27: England recalled Warwickshire opener Nick Knight to their squad on Sunday for the Second Test against Pakistan at Old Trafford starting Thursday May 31.

The 31-year-old left-hander takes the place of England captain and former Essex teammate Nasser Hussain who had his finger fractured by Shoaib Akhtar during England's opening Test innings and nine run victory at Lord's.

Knight who has made four centuries this season, three in one-day matches, played four Tests last summer after injury to Michael Vaughan.

"Nasser's injury has given me an opportunity similar to the one I had last season.

"If I get runs it'll give the selectors a bit of a problem. I'm sure there are other batsmen out there trying to get runs as well, but I'm the new guy coming in and it's important I do that too."

"In our discussions about a replacement batsman for Nasser, there were a number of outstanding candidates to choose from in particular younger players such as Owais Shah and Usman Afzaal," explained chairman of selectors David Graveney.

"In this instance, however, with Ian Ward having only just made his debut, we decided to go for a more experienced player and we considered Mark Ramprakash and John Crawley as well as Nick Knight.

"Our decision to pick Nick was based on the fact that he has been in outstanding form for Warwickshire this season, has batted in the middle order for England before and has also scored a Test hundred against Pakistan."

Yorkshire left-armer Ryan Sidebottom, who was wicketless on his Test debut at Lord's is replaced by county colleague Matthew Hoggard.

Continuing injury worries over left-arm spinner Ashley Giles (Achilles) and Yorkshire all-rounder Craig White (back) mean both are left out of the squad.

England squad: Alec Stewart (Surrey, capt/wkt), Michael Atherton (Lancashire), Marcus Trescothick (Somerset), Graham Thorpe (Surrey), Michael Vaughan (Yorkshire) Ian Ward (Surrey), Nick Knight (Warwickshire), Dominic Cork (Derbyshire), Robert Croft (Glamorgan), Andrew Caddick (Somerset), Darren Gough (Yorkshire), Matthew Hoggard (Yorkshire).