Patel drafted in for injured Ansari
That Patel’s weight will again be a topic for discussion is inevitable, and he will just have to put up with it. It was held to be a reason why England looked elsewhere last season at a time when the Sky TV pundit and former England coach, David Lloyd, termed him the form player in county cricket.
Samit Patel has been handed an unexpected chance to resurrect his Test career after Zafar Ansari was ruled out of England’s series against Pakistan.
That changed at the start of the week when he was pulled to one side by Mick Newell, the Nottinghamshire director of cricket and an England selector.
The Yorkshire leg spinner is still to convince England he is of Test class and the two warm-up matches against Pakistan A will be vital for nailing down his place in the first Test in Abu Dhabi. Ansari was included in both squads before the extent of his injury was confirmed but his participation this winter has been thrown into doubt.
Ansari obtained injured when he dropped a really troublesome catch off Lancashire’s Ashwell Prince.
The decision was made after Ansari saw a hand specialist and underwent an MRI scan.
He was part of the England squad in 2012 that won a Test series in India for the first time since 1984-85, but has not featured for his country in any format since the Twenty20 series in New Zealand in early 2013. “The European Central Bank and Surrey medical staff will supervise his rehabilitation closely and we all hope that he will be able to take up his place in the EPP and Lions squads for their trips to UAE later in the year”, national selector James Whitaker was quoted as saying in an official European Central Bank press release.
ODI squad: Eoin Morgan (captain), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Sam Billings, Jos Buttler, Steven Finn, Alex Hales, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, James Taylor, Reece Topley, David Willey, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood.