Zak Crawley Ruled Out As England Name Squad For Sri Lanka Test Series

England were forced to leave the injured Zak Crawley and Dillon Pennington out of the squad for the Test series against Sri Lanka.

England had to leave out the injured Zak Crawley and Dillon Pennington out of their squad for the three-match home Test series against Sri Lanka, starting from August 21.

Crawley sustained a fracture in his little finger while fielding during the third Test match against the West Indies, and Ben Stokes opened batting instead. Crawley will be replaced by Jordan Cox, the uncapped 23-year-old right-handed batter from Essex.

Cox has 3,936 runs in all first-class cricket, at 39.46, and has hit seven hundreds. However, his 763 runs this summer have come at 69.36, and he has hit three hundreds in 12 innings. Cox had toured Pakistan with the limited-overs squad in 2022, but did not get a game.

Also ruled out is the uncapped fast bowler Pennington of Nottinghamshire, who suffered a hamstring injury at The Hundred. The selectors have replaced Pennington with his county teammate Olly Stone, whose 10 wickets from three Test matches – between 2019 and 2019 – have come at 19.40.

England squad for Test series against Sri Lanka:

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

England versus Sri Lanka Test series schedule:

First Test: August 21-25 2024, Old Trafford, Manchester

Second Test: August 29-September 2, 2024, Lord’s, London

Third Test: September 6-10, 2024, The Oval, London

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