Olly Stone relishes England Test return, three years after career-saving surgery | England v Sri Lanka 2024

Olly Stone will cap his recovery from career-saving surgery to insert two screws into his back, which took place in the hospital next to Lord’s in 2021, by returning to St John’s Wood and the England Test team. He comes on for the second match against Sri Lanka on Thursday after a three-year absence, replacing the injured Mark Wood.

Stone, the only change from Saturday’s win at Old Trafford, made his Test debut against Ireland at Lord’s in 2019 and had only returned to the venue this summer during his spell with London Spirit in the Hundred. The 30-year-old’s recall to the Test squad follows an unexpected emergence as a potential all-rounder.

He is averaging 35 from nine innings for Nottinghamshire in this year’s County Championship, a vast improvement on the 15.33 and 16.33 he posted in his last two first-class summers and, having scored one red-ball half-century this year, has now scored three. “I always felt I had something in me,” he said. “I was just trying to find a way to be more consistent and maybe I’ve found it this year.”

Stone has played Twenty20 franchise cricket in Australia, Pakistan and South Africa, but a return to the Test team was always his goal. “You could probably try not to have the operation and see how it goes playing white ball,” he said. “I just like the feeling of coming out after four or five days, after a hard-fought victory.

“Sometimes it’s more than just skill, it’s your character. It’s something that white-ball cricket can’t give you. I just love the grind of that hard work.”

Twenty-five players have bowled for England since Stone was last selected, against New Zealand in 2021, but he continued to feel he had been eliminated from selection without injury. “I know my ability and if I performed well I would be there or close to it,” he said. “This year I was told to go away and play a run of games and if that happened, hopefully the call would come again.

“That’s the approach I take, I take it one match at a time. It’s helped me not to put pressure on myself, to go out there and enjoy my cricket.”

England men’s selector Luke Wright said it was “the right time to look to the future” after a number of senior players, including Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow and Chris Jordan, were left out of the squad for next month’s white-ball series against Australia. “They’re all fine cricketers,” he said, “but at the moment we just want to give some other opportunities.”

Wright said Bairstow, whose two-year central contract runs until the autumn of 2025, had not taken the news well. “It’s not like he’s finished when we spoke to him,” he said. “We just want him to get back to being one of the best players in the world.

“He had that horrible injury and that was the message. He understands that. He doesn’t like it and one thing Jonny will do is fight back – and I hope he does.”

Jos Buttler, England’s white-ball captain, is likely to give up the wicketkeeping gloves for some of the three T20s and five ODIs. “It’s something he’s considering,” Wright said. “The need to be in the field and to be with the bowlers at times. That could easily happen in this series.”