England all-rounder Ben Stokes has hailed Pakistan leg-spinner Yasir Shah as the best the game has seen since the days of Australian great Shane Warne.
England struggled against Shah at Lord's as the 30-year-old ran riot, picking up 10 for 141 and inspiring Pakistan to a 75-run win on Sunday, rising to the top of the world test bowling rankings.
“Yasir Shah, I reckon, is the best leg-spinner since Shane Warne,” Stokes told reporters on Wednesday.
“They are a very good team but we go into the Test match knowing how he goes about bowling and we should be able to counteract that. (The conditions are) another thing we will have to try and adapt to and we'll just see how it goes.”
Fit-again Stokes looks set to return to the starting line-up for the second Test at Old Trafford, starting on Friday, after undergoing a knee operation in May, but he said it might take time to regain his competitive edge.
“I have been playing as a batsman for two weeks. It is something I definitely did need, to get myself back into match situations,” the 25-year-old said.
“I have been bowling in the nets but you can't replicate (a match situation) doing that. The only thing you can do is bowl in a game. So it was good on that point and it was a massive confidence boost.”
"It seems a lot longer than it has been. I thought I was going to be back earlier than I was, purely because of how good the rehab was in the first few weeks. I am here now and I'm back fully fit."
England is 1-0 down in the four-match series and Stokes is in line for a recall to bolster the home side's batting as much as for his lively pace bowling.
"Losing is something that we can't afford to do but we have have been playing some good Test cricket over the last two years," he said.
"It's one defeat, we are not taking it to heart, we're just treating it as a three-match series and hoping we can win it."
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