Stokes and Atkinson back for England as a level series heads to a Trent Bridge decider
Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson return after sitting out the Oval defeat, with England and New Zealand locked at 1-1 heading into the series decider at Trent Bridge from Thursday.
Jun 24, 2026
Two Tests in, England and New Zealand have nothing between them. England took the opener at Lord’s by 115 runs, New Zealand levelled it with a 253-run rout at the Oval, and a series that has lurched from one extreme to the other now comes down to a single match at Trent Bridge, beginning on Thursday, June 25. For England, the timing of the decider helps: Ben Stokes is back as captain, and Gus Atkinson returns alongside him.
Stokes and Atkinson cleared to return
Both players missed the Oval Test after being made unavailable in the wake of an incident at a Chelsea nightclub a fortnight earlier. With the ECB’s disciplinary process now wrapped up, the pair have been cleared, and Stokes steps straight back into the captaincy that England visibly lacked in their chastening defeat at the Oval. Atkinson, who took a five-for in the second innings at Lord’s, gives the attack back its cutting edge.
They are two of four changes to the side beaten at the Oval. Shoaib Bashir comes back into the XI, with a heatwave forecast over Nottingham tilting the balance towards a frontline spinner, while wicketkeeper Jamie Smith returns after sitting out the second Test for the birth of his second child. James Rew, who endured a difficult debut, has been cut from the squad, and there is no recall for Ollie Robinson despite his fitness. England line up as Ben Duckett, Emilio Gay, Jacob Bethell, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Smith, Stokes, Atkinson, Jofra Archer, Josh Tongue and Bashir.
The Oval still stings
England arrive at Trent Bridge with the memory of a chastening week behind them. New Zealand piled up 391 and 362 at the Oval and bowled England out for 291 and 209, with Matt Henry carving through both innings for figures of five for 80 and six for 29. His eleven wickets made him the first seamer to take a ten-wicket match haul for any side at the Oval since Devon Malcolm flattened South Africa there in 1994. England were also docked 12 World Test Championship points for a slow over-rate in that match, a penalty that bites in a tight title race and adds another reason to set the record straight.
A series in the balance
The contrast between the first two Tests tells its own story. The Lord’s pitch was so treacherous that a wicket fell roughly every 25 balls, the quickest rate in a Test in England in well over a century, and the match was over inside four days. The Oval was the opposite, a surface New Zealand batted on for two long innings while England’s bowlers toiled. Trent Bridge, traditionally a ground that rewards seam movement under cloud and runs freely under sun, sits somewhere in between, and which version turns up may decide the series.
For New Zealand, the prize is a rare series win on English soil, and the Oval performance showed they have the bowling to take it. Henry and Kyle Jamieson have already done damage in this series, and Tom Latham’s side will fancy their chances of finishing the job. England, with their captain restored and a settled batting order, will back themselves to respond at a ground where they have often felt at home. After a fortnight of swings, the cleanest possible outcome has arrived: one Test, level series, winner takes it all.