Crane among Test travelling reserves
Hampshire spinner Mason Crane is one of six travelling reserves for the first part of England’s tour of India starting next month.
The call up shows he remains firmly in the selectors’ thoughts - more than three years after making his only Test appearance.
Crane, who will celebrate his 24th birthday while on tour, is one of three right-arm slow bowlers named among the reserves.
Fellow leg-break bowler Matt Parkinson (Lancashire) and off-break bowler Amir Virdi (Surrey) are the others who will provide back-up to the three spinners named in the 16-strong tour party.
Somerset’s Dom Bess and Jack Leach - who both claimed five-wicket hauls in England’s win in Sri Lanka earlier this week - is joined by Moeen Ali in a squad which welcomes back Jofra Archer,Ben Stokes and Rory Burns.
Archer and Stokes were rested for the Sri Lanka series and Burns was at home for the birth of his first child.
The 16-man squad and six reserves have been named for the first two Test matches against India only, starting on February 5 in Chennai. The last two Tests take place at the end of February, with five T20s and three ODIs taking place in March.
Crane made his senior England debut in a T20 international in the summer of 2017. The following
January he was handed his Test debut in the final Ashes Test in Sydney. It was an unhappy experience, Crane taking 1-193 as Australia rattled up 649-7 en route to an innings victory.
Crane, below, has suffered with back injuries since - missing most of the 2018 season, where he didn’t play a single Championship game for Hampshire, and the second half of the 2019 summer. He made an impressive return to the first class scene in last summer’s Bob Willis Trophy. In four games he took 14 wickets at 13.57. Only Ian Holland (17) took more wickets, but the medium pacer bowled 774 deliveries compared to Crane’s 364.
Crane has never played in India, but has experience of bowling in Asian conditions - he played in the Under-19 World Cup in Bangladesh in 2016, which followed a Tri-Nations series involving England, India and Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka two months earlier.
England squad: Joe Root (Yorkshire, captain), Jofra Archer (Sussex), Moeen
Ali (Worcestershire), James Anderson (Lancashire), Dom Bess (Yorkshire), Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire), Rory Burns (Surrey), Jos Buttler (Lancashire), Zak Crawley (Kent), Ben Foakes (Surrey), Dan Lawrence (Essex), Jack Leach (Somerset), Dom Sibley (Warwickshire), Ben Stokes (Durham), Olly Stone (Warwickshire), Chris Woakes (Warwickshire). Reserves: James Bracey (Gloucestershire), Mason Crane (Hampshire), Saqib Mahmood (Lancashire), Matthew Parkinson (Lancashire), Ollie Robinson (Sussex), Amar Virdi (Surrey).