Carse left out of England squad for third Pakistan Test

England have omitted Brydon Carse from their squad for the third and final Test against Pakistan at Edgbaston.

The 31-year-old Durham seamer was dropped for the second Test at Lord's after he was briefly arrested following an incident outside a Derby nightclub on 22 August.

Derbyshire police are continuing to investigate an allegation of assault in connection with that incident.

Carse's replacement, 23-year-old Sonny Baker, has retained his place in England's 15-man party.

Surrey's Matthew Fisher has been dropped from an otherwise unchanged England squad as they seek to complete a series clean-sweep over Pakistan.

The third Test in Birmingham starts on Wednesday, 9 September at 11:00 BST.

With six white-ball matches against Sri Lanka to follow the Test series, England may consider resting seamers Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson and Josh Tongue, all of whom feature in the limited-overs set-up.

While the trio have been named in the Test squad, they may be rotated in favour of Baker, Essex pace bowler Sam Cook and Derbyshire spinner Shoaib Bashir.

Cook, 29, played his one Test against Zimbabwe last summer while 22-year-old Bashir is yet to feature in this series, with England preferring an all-pace attack.

Baker made his only Test appearance to date in a much-changed line-up against New Zealand at The Oval in June.

Carse remains available for selection for Durham and finished with match figures of 4-95 in their win over Gloucestershire last week.

However, he has not been picked in the XI for their match against Northamptonshire, which started on Wednesday.

Pakistan made the extraordinary move of dropping seven players, calling up five uncapped players and releasing their head coach prior to the Edgbaston Test.

Sarfaraz Ahmed has replaced by Pakistan white-ball coach Mike Hesson, while Muhammad Rizwan, Imam-ul-Haq, Salman Ali Agha, Ali Usman and Khurram Shahzad, all of whom have featured in the series, are among the players dropped.

England beat Pakistan by an innings and 103 runs in the first Test at Headingley and sealed series victory with a win by 194 runs at Lord's last week.