Leading-spinner Jack Leach is snubbed as England call up Liam Dawson and Keaton Jennings

Surprise call: Liam Dawson will replace Zafar Ansari, who picked up a back injury during the Second Test
Gareth Copley/Getty Images
Chris Stocks30 November 2016

England have called up Durham opener Keaton Jennings and Hampshire spinner Liam Dawson as injury replacements for Haseeb Hameed and Zafar Ansari.

Hameed is flying home for surgery on the badly broken little finger on his left hand that he bravely defied to score an unbeaten 59 on the final day of England’s eight-wicket defeat in the Third Test here.

Ansari is also out of the final two matches with the back injury he sustained during the Second Test defeat in Visakhapatnam last week.

The Surrey left-arm spinner will stay with the squad and continue to receive medical support before returning home on December 8.

Jennings and Dawson will join up with England in Mumbai on Monday ahead of the Fourth Test a week tomorrow.

Johannesburg-born Jennings, who captained South Africa’s Under-19 team, has had an outstanding season at the top of the order for Durham, scoring 1,548 County Championship runs, including seven centuries, at an average of 64.50.

The 24-year-old qualifies for England through his mother, who was born in Sunderland. His father, Ray, is a former coach of South Africa, who played more than 300 professional matches for Transvaal and Northern Transvaal as a wicketkeeper.

Jennings, the leading runscorer in Division One of the Championship last summer, had to put off exams for an accountancy degree he is taking in his native South Africa in order to join up with the Lions squad in the UAE this winter.

He was always the favourite to replace Hameed once the seriousness of the youngster’s injury was established yesterday. The 19-year-old Lancashire opener will have a metal plate inserted in his left hand on his return home after a break that coach Trevor Bayliss said left his little finger “in two pieces”. Hameed is expected to be fully recovered in time for the start of the 2017 domestic season in April.

Left-hander Jennings won the race to replace him for the final two Tests in India ahead of Kent pair Sam Billings and Daniel Bell-Drummond, as well as Middlesex’s Nick Gubbins.

Dawson, meanwhile, was a surprising choice to replace Ansari ahead of Jack Leach, the Somerset left-arm spinner.

The Hampshire spinner, who like Ansari has also batted at the top of the order in first-class cricket, was released by England Lions to take part in the Bangladesh Premier League, where is playing for Rangpur Riders.

However, his domestic form last season is far inferior to that of Leach, 25, who is with the Lions in the UAE.

Dawson took 20 Division One Championship wickets at 43.85 last summer compared to Leach’s 65 at 21.88.

Yet Dawson is a favourite of Bayliss after impressing with his attitude when called up for the WorldT20 in India earlier this year. Despite not playing in that tournament, the 26-year-old went on to make his T20 and one-day international debuts last summer.

His call-up ahead of the leading domestic spinner, Leach, though, is still a genuine shock given the fact England may well have to pick three spinners for the Mumbai Test.

Jennings, who is set to make his England Lions debut against the UAE in Dubai tomorrow before heading to Mumbai, spoke last month about missing out on England selection to Hameed and Ben Duckett when the squad for the Bangladesh Test series, which was unchanged for India, was announced.

He said: “I think my family and the people around me are probably more disappointed than me. Good luck to Has and, it’s an awesome place to make your debut. It’s a hard, lovely, tough challenge to make your debut in — it will be awesome. I wondered whether it would affect me, but deep down, it didn’t. It’s been an awesome couple of months.”

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