Due to injuries, England’s standout opener Zak Crawley and uncapped seamer Dillon Pennington will miss the three Test matches against Sri Lanka beginning on August 21. Pennington will miss the Test series due to a hamstring injury he received while participating in The Hundred, while Crawley is sidelined with a fractured finger. Dan Lawrence and Olly Stone have been added by the hosts to take Crawley’s and Pennington’s places, respectively.
During last week’s final Test match between the West Indies and England at Edgbaston, Crawley attempted to grab a slip catch and broke his little finger in his right hand. The opener is hoping to make a comeback during the October away Pakistan Tests, but his fractured finger keeps him out of The Hundred and the Sri Lanka Tests.
Lawrence will take Ben Stokes’ place at the top of the order for the next three Tests, despite the fact that Test Captain Ben Stokes began with Ben Duckett in the second innings of the most recent West Indies Test and achieved the fastest fifty for an English player (in 24 balls).
Lawrence last participated in a Test match under Joe Root in 2022, and he has been England’s backup hitter for more than a year. Lawrence has batted at number three to seven in his 11 Test matches so far, but he has never opened.
For the Sri Lanka series, Jordan Cox, 23, has been selected as the backup batter. This season, in the County Championship, the right-hander has amassed 763 runs at 69.36, including three hundreds, since making his Essex debut. After his appendix operation, he just made a comeback to competitive cricket, playing for the Oval Invincibles in The Hundred. Cox may also be England’s backup wicketkeeper in the Test match against Pakistan.
Cox stated, “I have been thinking more about the white-ball side of it,” following his first Test call-up. “I just thought there are so many good players out there, and I thought, I am not going to be in that yet, if ever, so to get this call was pretty awesome.”
