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Stokes out as England name third Test squad

Allrounder exits through injury after one match back in the Test team

Ben Stokes has been ruled of next week’s third Test between England and Pakistan at Edgbaston because of a torn right calf.

England have recalled Jake Ball, who made his Test debut in the 75-run defeat by Pakistan in the series opener at Lord’s, and Steven Finn, who also played a Lord’s Test. Both players were sent back to their counties when the second Test squad of 14 was whittled down to 12. 

It means Yorkshire and Adelaide Strikers leg-spinner Adil Rashid keeps his place in the 13-man squad that heads to Birmingham.

Quick Single: Bayliss ruing Stokes injury

Stokes, the Durham allrounder, suffered the injury midway through bowling his sixth over on the fourth day of the second Test at Old Trafford on Monday.

England won the match by 330 runs to level the four-match series at 1-1. 

England complete resounding victory

A scan later revealed the extent of Stokes’s injury and his fitness is to be reviewed by the England medical team next week, with the squad assembling in Birmingham on Monday.

Stokes was making a comeback at Old Trafford from a knee injury he picked up in the first Test against Sri Lanka earlier in the season at Headingley.

Surgery on the knee kept him out of the two subsequent Tests against the Lankans, as well as the Lord’s Test against Pakistan.

The third Test starts on Wednesday, August 3.

England squad: Alastair Cook (capt), Alex Hales, Joe Root, James Vince, Gary Ballance, Chris Woakes, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Moeen Ali, Stuart broad, James Anderson, Steven Finn, Jake Ball, Adil Rashid.