FOAKES JOINS TOUR AS COVER FOR BAIRSTOW
ENGLAND have called up the ‘best wicketkeeper in the world’ to cover for the injured Jonny Bairstow in their squad for three Tests against Sri Lanka. Ben Foakes, who was given that lofty tribute by Alec Stewart, his director of cricket at Surrey, is due to arrive in Colombo tomorrow and is expected to play in the first of two warm-up games on Tuesday. Bairstow is a doubt for the first Test in Galle on November 6 after damaging ankle ligaments playing football and will definitely miss tomorrow’s one-off Twenty20 international that concludes the white-ball leg of England’s tour. And Foakes, 25, is likely to play in the first Test if Bairstow is ruled out, even though England already have white-ball gloveman Jos Buttler, who also kept in the fourth Test against India last summer, in their squad. Coach Trevor Bayliss had earmarked Foakes for this tour because he felt England would need their best keeper, with spin likely to dominate in the uniquely demanding conditions of Sri Lanka. But once Buttler had been recalled to Test cricket at the behest of new national selector Ed Smith, it was eventually felt a third keeper in this squad would prove a luxury and instead England brought an extra seamer. Now Foakes, an unused squad player in Australia and New Zealand last winter, becomes the latest success story from new county champions Surrey. So highly regarded is Foakes’s all-round game that Bayliss considered picking him last winter as a specialist batsman, but now he could finally get his opportunity to prove he belongs at the highest level, both with the gloves and bat. The rest of England’s Test specialists touched down in Colombo to begin acclimatisation work yesterday afternoon.