England have called up two uncapped players to their squad for the remainder of the Test series in India with Keaton Jennings, the Durham left-hander, replacing Haseeb Hameed and Hampshire’s Liam Dawson in for his fellow left-armer Zafar Ansari.
England is 2-0 down in the series with two matches to play. The fourth Test starts on 8 December.
Meanwhile, the visitors say they expect Chris Woakes to be fit for next week’s fourth Test in Mumbai despite an X-ray showing a crack on his right thumb.
Jennings, 24, made his Durham debut in 2012 and was the leading run-scorer in the 2016 Specsavers County Championship season with 1,548 at an average of 64. He is set to make his England Lions debut against the United Arab Emirates in Dubai on Thursday.
Dawson, 26, made ODI and T20 debuts for England last summer after impressing on last winter’s Lions programme in the UAE. He has 130 first-class wickets at 37.47, averages 34.17 with the bat and has a highest score of 169. He is also expected to arrive in Mumbai early next week.
