Crawley out of Sri Lanka Tests with broken finger

LONDON (Agencies): England opener Zak Crawley has been ruled out of the Test series against Sri Lanka starting this month because of a fractured finger.

The 26-year-old damaged the little finger on his right hand attempting to take a catch at second slip in the victory over West Indies at Edgbaston last week which sealed a 3-0 series clean sweep.

Surrey’s Dan Lawrence will open alongside Ben Duckett in Crawley’s absence.

Essex’s Jordan Cox has been called up to the Test squad for the first time.

The 23-year-old has scored 763 runs, including three centuries, at an average of 69.36 in 12 County Championship matches this season.

He was an unused member of England’s white-ball squad on the 2022 tour of Pakistan.

Nottinghamshire fast bowler Olly Stone, who has played three Tests amid several absences through injury, returns to the squad for the first time since June 2021.

He replaces uncapped seam bowler and Notts team-mate Dillon Pennington, who suffered a hamstring injury playing for Northern Superchargers in The Hundred on Friday.

The first Test against Sri Lanka at Emirates Old Trafford starts on 21 August, followed by matches at Lord’s and the Kia Oval.

England begin a three-Test tour of Pakistan on 7 October.

Crawley is pushing to be fit for that tour but Pennington is likely to be out for the rest of the season.

Cox is a candidate to be England’s reserve wicketkeeper behind Jamie Smith for the tours of Pakistan and New Zealand this winter.

England squad: Ben Stokes (capt), 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.

Crawley was unable to bat in the second innings at Edgbaston. Opening in his place, captain Ben Stokes hit a 24-ball fifty, England’s fastest in Test history.

Lawrence has been the reserve batter in the England squad for more than a year and was in line to replace Duckett for the second Test against West Indies, when the left-hander was on standby to be at the birth of his daughter.

Lawrence played the most recent of his 11 Tests in 2022, before Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum took charge of the England team.

Since the beginning of last summer’s Ashes, only England team-mate Joe Root and India opener Yashasvi Jaiswal have scored more Test runs than Crawley.