England have lost two all-rounders in a morning, and for different reasons.
Sam Curran will have groin surgery on Friday and is out for the rest of the English season. Will Jacks has had his appendix removed.
Curran’s Test return goes with him
He had a route back into the Test side, and it was specific. Marcus North, the selector, had said Curran was seriously considered for the first two Tests of this Pakistan series.
He was left out of those on workload grounds rather than form. The report says an intense summer, including captaining MI London in the Hundred, made picking him for back-to-back Tests at Headingley and Lord’s look unfair on him.
The plan was the decider instead: Edgbaston, from September 9. Part of the build-up was a County Championship return for Surrey, at home to Nottinghamshire. He plays in none of it.
The body has been the problem all year
A run of niggles, one of them an earlier groin issue that cost Sam Curran the IPL. No recovery timeline is given beyond the end of the season.
He was talked of as the natural answer to Ben Stokes retiring, which is a heavy thing to be handed. His Test career is 24 caps, the last in 2021, after a debut at 19 in 2018. White-ball cricket took over in between.
Jacks is a different case, and worth stating carefully
The ECB says only that it will monitor his recovery and look at his availability before the Sri Lanka white-ball series, which begins on September 15 with three T20 internationals and then three one-day internationals.
Jacks will not be available for the current Pakistan series. However, the England and Wales Cricket Board hasn’t given any official update.
Jacks had been an option for this series and lost out to Dan Lawrence, who fills the spin-bowling allrounder slot at number six in a side balanced with four quick bowlers.