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Anderson injury offers England room for manoeuvre
- Updated: October 31, 2016
England will resist the immediate temptation to send for reinforcements ahead of the tour of India, but it remains possible a player could be added to the squad in the coming weeks.
Having suffered a chastening final day in Dhaka, where they missed several opportunities in the field and lost all 10 wickets in a session, there might have been a temptation to refresh a squad that is struggling to both play and bowl spin as well as the opposition. Alastair Cook, the captain, admitted on Sunday that England “haven’t got world-class spinners”.
But while James Whitaker, the national selector, has confirmed England will keep faith with the 16-man squad originally named for the tour, replacement players will be called up in case of injury. That could even include the possibility of replacing James Anderson who was not named in the original tour party for the India series with the understanding that he would join the squad if he was deemed to be fit.
“We’ve picked our squad and we stand by that,” Whitaker told ESPNcricinfo. “If someone is injured or becomes unwell, we can look at making changes but these are the players we believe are best equipped for the job.
“James Anderson continues to make his comeback from injury at Loughborough and we will assess his fitness before deciding what his involvement on the tour will be.”
One of the great truisms of cricket is that a player’s reputation can often improve most when he is not playing. So, with England’s spinners struggling to match the potency of their Bangladesh counterparts, the calls for the inclusion of Somerset’s Jack Leach or Middlesex’s Ollie Rayner have intensified.
Leach, a left-arm spinner, claimed 65 Championship wickets during the 2016 season at an average of 21.87. No England-qualified player claimed more in Division One. Rayner, the Middlesex off-spinner, claimed 51 Championship wickets at an average of 23.56. By comparison with the spinners in England’s squad, Gareth Batty claimed 41 at 31.21, Adil Rashid claimed 32 at 33.84 and Zafar Ansari 22 at …
