Ollie Pope has been placed on standby to keep wicket for England during their must-win second Test against New Zealand after Jos Buttler emerged as an injury doubt 24 hours out from the match.
Buttler, 29, experienced back pain while working out in the gym before training on Thursday. It follows 201 overs in the field during the first Test in Mount Maunganui, an innings defeat that sees Joe Root’s side looking to draw the two-match series.
Root, speaking at his captain’s press conference before the match, said: “Jos has tweaked his back in the gym. We’ll have to find out a little bit more information on that throughout today and tomorrow and see where he’s at.”
With Jonny Bairstow dropped from the Test squad after a low-key Ashes series with the bat, Pope was always down as the reserve wicketkeeper on tour. Surrey’s 21-year-old batting prodigy has kept wicket in five first-class matches to date, most recently for England Lions against India A in February.
It would leave a vacancy in the team that lost at Bay Oval, however, and Zak Crawley, the uncapped Kent right-hander who made a century in England’s first warm-up match in Whangarei a fortnight ago, is the only spare batsman in the 15-man squad.
Another option would be to include Chris Woakes as a third all-rounder alongside Ben Stokes and Sam Curran – such a move would bolster a bowling attack that was ground down on a flat pitch in the first Test – with Root stating it may yet hinge on how the pitch at Seddon Park before the toss.
The England captain added: “We want to have a look at the wicket. Seeing how it looked yesterday and how different it looked today, giving it another 24 hours could give us a lot more information. The wickets are prepared slightly differently here.”
