England have included off-spinner Dom Bess to their squad for the second and final Test against New Zealand in Edgbaston, starting Thursday (June 10).
The 23-year-old offie has been recalled to provide cover for left-arm spinner Jack Leach who is fit and looks ready to roll his arms over against the Black Caps later this week.
Bess has played 14 Tests for England with 36 wickets at 33.97 runs per piece and has been an understudy to first-choice tweaker Leach for a while. He joined the England camp in Birmingham on Sunday after taking four wickets earlier in the day for Yorkshire in their win against Sussex in the County Championship.
Bess will be allowed to train with the rest of the squad from Wednesday after two days of managed isolation and testing.
“The reason we’ve added Dom is that any cover we may need has to be in here with us. If Jack was to feature, we would need back-up for him in terms of concussion replacements and things like that.”
“If we are looking at playing a spinner and Jack were to get injured leading into the game, then we will need someone else there as well. It’s making sure we cover that.”
Chris Silverwood, the England coach, was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
Silverwood said the inclusion of Bess in a squad featuring Leach will give them more options in case they identify the track at Edgbaston as not one skewed heavily in favour of the quicks.
Besides, the addition of a spinner to the attack will take care of England’s over-rate after they were fined 40% of their match fees for a breach of the same in the first Test.
During some parts of the Test at Lord’s, England did miss the control and the incisiveness of Leach, who troubled Cheteshwar Pujara among others, inarguably one of the better players of spin currently, in the series in India in February-March.
