James Vince has been recalled to England\u2019s squad for the fourth Test against India in Southampton starting on August 30, giving the elegant but underachieving batsman another chance to prove himself at the highest level.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old Hampshire stylist will provide cover for Jonny Bairstow, who suffered a small fracture to his left middle finger after being struck by the ball while keeping wicket on day three of England\u2019s third Test defeat at Trent Bridge.<\/p>\n
The recall may offer another opportunity for Vince, who has yet to translate his handsome batting style into Test match substance. He played the last of his 13 Tests against New Zealand in March, before being dropped for the Pakistan series in May.<\/p>\n
With a Test average of 24.90, his international career has so far delivered only a few tantalising cameos with three half-centuries, but his county form has prompted selectors, dismayed by England\u2019s dismal batting at Nottingham, to offer him a reprieve.<\/p>\n
Vince has scored 847 runs, the second most by any player, at an average of 56.46 in division one this summer, capped by innings of 74 and 147 that proved instrumental in Hampshire\u2019s win over Nottinghamshire this week while England slumped.<\/p>\n
National selector Ed Smith said: \u201cThe selection panel felt this was the right time to reintroduce James Vince to the Test squad. James will provide cover in case Jonny Bairstow\u2019s fractured finger prevents him playing in the fourth Test match.<\/p>\n
\u201cJames returns to the England set-up in confident form and scoring runs. He has been in excellent form for Hampshire \u2026 James\u2019 match-winning runs also helped Hampshire to win the Royal London Cup earlier this summer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s comments came only three months since he offered a more damning verdict on Vince when dropping him for the Pakistan series.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has shown that when he plays well, boy does he look a Test player, however he has played 13 Tests and averages 24. There is a bigger picture than that. His cricketing history has not produced the runs he should have done,\u201d said Smith in May.<\/p>\n
Selectors, though, may have felt they needed to act after India\u2019s 203-run romp in the third Test which narrowed the hosts\u2019 lead to 2-1 after three of the five Tests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
James Vince has been recalled to England\u2019s squad for the fourth Test against India in Southampton starting on August 30, giving the elegant but underachieving batsman another chance to prove himself at the highest level. The 27-year-old Hampshire stylist will provide cover for Jonny Bairstow, who suffered a small fracture to his left middle finger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40103,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40104,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40102\/revisions\/40104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}