IND vs ENG: England opener Zak Crawley out of first two Tests

Zak Crawley. Pic/AFP

Fast-rising England opener Zak Crawley was on Thursday ruled out of the first two Test matches against India after sustaining a freak wrist injury on his 23rd birthday. Crawley, who turned 23 on Wednesday, had slipped on the marble floor of the Chepauk dressing room, thereby injuring his wrist. The first Test begins here on Friday. "Following the results of last night's scan, England top-order batsman Zak Crawley has been ruled out of the first two Tests of the India versus England series," the ECB said in a media release.

"Scan results have confirmed that Crawley has jarred his right wrist, which has sprained the joint and led to local inflammation. The England medical team will continue to assess his progress over the next few weeks," it stated. The right-handed opener Crawley has 616 runs from 10 Test matches, including one hundred and three fifties. He had a poor tour of Sri Lanka with scores of 9, 8, 5 and 13. England skipper Joe Root said Crawley's injury was frustrating as well as unfortunate. "Yeah, it's really frustrating and really frustrating for Zak in particular, real freak incident (the) way (it happened)," Root said at the pre-match media interaction.

"Walking out the change between slipped over and landed on his wrist, so hard for him to take specially at the back off, trying to get as best prepared as well possible for this series and of course... "...It means, we have to look at things from a selection point of view. I think from as a more general saying I think everything's on the table in terms of selection one way, and we get to the ground, look at the conditions, look at the surface again and try and have real clarity going into the game."

Would he consider moving up to number three in the wake of Crawley's injury? "There's a number of different things we've got, we've got some brilliant players, brilliant options to choose from and we look at the balance of the side and things as well... "...but you know, they'll all be things that will discuss over the course of today and make sure that we're really happy with the team that we take into the game tomorrow," Root added.

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