Crawley & Pennington ruled out of England’s Tests against Sri Lanka; Cox gets maiden call-up

New Delhi, Aug 4 (IANS) Zak Crawley and Dillon Pennington have been ruled out of England’s squad for their three-match Test series against Sri Lanka, starting from August 21 at Manchester.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said Crawley will miss the series due to a fractured right little finger sustained in England’s third Test victory over the West Indies at Edgbaston, while Pennington also misses out after sustaining a hamstring injury while playing in The Hundred competition for the Northern Superchargers.

Crawley’s injury means he will now be building up to return to England’s squad for their three-match Test tour of Pakistan in October. For now, in his absence for the Sri Lanka series, Dan Lawrence is all set to open the batting for England alongside Ben Duckett.

In the duo’s absence, middle-order batter Jordan Cox has been given a maiden call-up, while pacer Olly Stone earns a recall to the Test team for the first time since June 2021. Cox as been in excellent form for Essex this season after joining from Kent at the start of the year.

He has amassed 763 runs in 12 innings of County Championship Division One matches at an average of 69.36, including hitting three hundreds. Cox has been involved in the England set-up previously, having toured Pakistan with the England white-ball squad in the autumn of 2022.

On the other hand, Stone, whose career has been stop-start due to injuries, will be looking to add to his three Test caps and ten scalps in the format through the series against Sri Lanka. Following the first Test at Manchester, England will play its next two Tests against Sri Lanka at Lord’s (August 29-September) and The Oval (September 6-10).

England squad: Ben Stokes (c), Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Harry Brook, Jordan Cox, Ben Duckett, Dan Lawrence, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Jamie Smith (wk), Olly Stone, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood

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