England v New Zealand: Ben Foakes out, Haseeb Hameed and Sam Billings into hosts’ squad

LONDON (BBC): England wicketkeeper Ben Foakes will miss the two Tests against New Zealand in June with a hamstring injury, while opener Haseeb Hameed and keeper Sam Billings have been added to the squad.

Surrey’s Foakes slipped in the dressing room after their County Championship match against Middlesex on Sunday. Nottinghamshire’s Hameed played three Tests in 2016 before several lean years but has impressed so far this season. Kent’s Billings is a regular in the white-ball sides but uncapped in Tests.

England face New Zealand in two Tests, starting on 2 June at Lord’s, followed by 10 June at Edgbaston. Foakes’ injury means that Gloucestershire’s James Bracey is now set to make his Test debut as England’s wicketkeeper at Lord’s. Bracey, 24, was acting as both the keeping and batting reserve in the original 15-man squad, but with him now likely to be in the starting side, the hosts required cover for both.

oakes, 28, is expected to be out of action for at least three months and remains yet to play a Test at home, having made a Test ton on debut in Sri Lanka in 2018 before playing in the West Indies and India. England’s next Test series will be against India, starting on 4 August.

Hameed, 24, became the youngest debutant to open for England in a Test in the first match against India at Rajkot in November 2016, aged 19. He scored his maiden Test fifty in that game and a second half-century in the second innings of the third Test, despite breaking his finger in the first innings, which required him to miss the rest of the tour.

He subsequently struggled at Lancashire before joining Nottinghamshire for the 2020 season.

This year he has scored 474 runs at an average of 52.66 in the County Championship, including two centuries in the same match against Worcestershire in April.

Kent captain Billings, 29, has played 22 one-day internationals and 30 Twenty20 internationals for England. He has six first-class hundreds, but has played only one County Championship match for Kent so far this season, scoring 11 runs against Glamorgan earlier this month. Jos Buttler, Chris Woakes, Sam Curran, Moeen Ali and Jonny Bairstow were left out, having only recently returned from the Indian Premier League. Ben Stokes (broken finger) and Jofra Archer (elbow injury) are also absent.
Squad: Joe Root (Yorkshire), James Anderson (Lancashire), Sam Billings (Kent), James Bracey (Gloucestershire), Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire), Rory Burns (Surrey), Zak Crawley (Kent), Haseeb Hameed (Nottinghamshire), Dan Lawrence (Essex), Jack Leach (Somerset), Craig Overton (Somerset), Ollie Pope (Surrey), Ollie Robinson (Sussex), Dom Sibley (Warwickshire), Olly Stone (Warwickshire), Mark Wood (Durham).

‘A great boost to Hameed’s confidence’ – analysis
It is rotten luck for Ben Foakes, who was set to play his first home Test after impressing over the winter.
But like Zak Crawley in India, he has slipped on a dressing room floor and torn his left hamstring.

Haseeb Hameed promised so much in India five years ago but then his career ground to a halt. But he’s averaging 52 this season and, although he is unlikely to play next week, simply being back in the reckoning again will be a great boost to the confidence of a very promising young batsman.