Vernon Philander declared fit for Lord's Test

South African speedster Vernon Philander has been declared fit for the first Test against England. The first of the four Tests kicks off on July 6 at the iconic venue of Lord’s. Earlier, Philander was not a part of the South African lineup that played in the warm up match against Worcester recently in the lead up to the Test series. Talking about the injury, Vernon Philander had injured his ankle during his County stint this year.

He was playing for the team Sussex this season when he had sustained the injury. Now, as per the recent reports in ESPNcricinfo, Philander has completely recovered from the injury. This comes as a very good news for the visitors on the tour that has not given them much to rejoice about.

They lost the ODI series 2-1 in the lead up to the Champions Trophy. Later, they were ousted out of the Champions Trophy before the semi-final stages with just one win in the tournament. After the conclusion of the ICC mega event, the English tour for the Proteas camp resumed with the T20I series. They ended up losing the T20I series 2-1 as well.

Clouds over Du Plessis’ availability

The South African team has a very strong bowling attack on paper at the moment. While Vernon Philander has been declared fit, the availability of Faf du Plessis still remains in doubt. Du Plessis had missed the T20I series since he was expecting his first child back home.

Now that he has become a proud father, there have been speculations of him returning back to the lineup. The confirmation about the same will be given on Monday. In case Faf du Plessis missed the first Test, one of Theunis de Bruyn or Aiden Markram can come in Faf du Plessis’ place in the starting eleven for the Lord’s Test.