Brydon Carse England squad omission extended to Edgbaston Test amid police inquiry

By Jack Shaw · Birmingham · Published: 07:30 BST

• England have left Brydon Carse out of their 15-man squad for the third and final Test against Pakistan, which begins at Edgbaston on Wednesday 9 September at 11:00 BST.
• Derbyshire police are still investigating an allegation of assault linked to the 22 August incident outside a Derby bar after which the Durham seamer was briefly arrested, then de-arrested. The Cricket Regulator is also investigating his conduct.
• Sonny Baker keeps the place he inherited for the Lord’s Test, with Surrey’s Matthew Fisher the only other change to an otherwise unaltered squad.

Brydon Carse England squad hopes are over for the summer: the 31-year-old Durham seamer is not among the 15 names picked for the third Test against Pakistan while police investigate an assault allegation linked to his arrest in Derby last month — and with it goes his last chance of a Test appearance this series.

What happened in Derby

Carse was stood down from the squad for the second Test at Lord’s after being briefly detained outside a bar in Derby city centre on 22 August while celebrating a Durham win. He was filmed in handcuffs being led away by officers, who confirmed he was arrested on suspicion of being drunk and disorderly and subsequently de-arrested. Derbyshire police have since confirmed they are investigating an assault allegation from that night; ESPNcricinfo reports it is unclear whether Carse himself was involved. He was in the first-Test squad at Headingley but never named in an XI.

He remains available to his county — he took 4-95 in Durham’s 10-wicket win over Gloucestershire last week — but was left out against Northamptonshire, which Durham attributed to “pre-arranged workload management with the ECB”. For the full timeline, from the arrest to this squad announcement, see the running file on ReadCricket.

Why the Brydon Carse England squad decision was straightforward

Whatever the cricketing merits, England were never realistically going to pick him — and the ECB chair all but said so out loud. Asked on Sky Sports during the Lord’s Test about player conduct, Richard Thompson said: “I have to be careful what I say… The Cricket Regulator’s involved with a recent event, and a potential criminal investigation, so I don’t want to do anything that could prejudice that.” That is a governing body signalling that due process outranks selection, and picking a player mid-investigation would have handed the story a fortnight of oxygen it does not need.

The cricket makes the call easier. Interim head coach Marcus Trescothick hinted after Lord’s that England would go in unchanged, having praised the value of his first-choice seamers — Jofra Archer, Ollie Robinson, Josh Tongue and Gus Atkinson — playing together regularly: “The more experience everyone gets together, then it sort of fits into place how you want it to be.” He also promised “we’re not going to ease off the gas” with a series whitewash on offer, which ESPNcricinfo notes would be England’s first since July 2024.

The one wrinkle, per BBC Sport, is workload: six white-ball games against Sri Lanka follow, and Archer, Atkinson and Tongue are all in that set-up, which could open a door for Sonny Baker, Sam Cook or Shoaib Bashir. Pakistan arrive having released coach Sarfaraz Ahmed, turned to Mike Hesson and dropped seven players; five of the seven replacements are uncapped.

Was leaving Carse out the only defensible call while an investigation is open — or is England’s summer of off-field noise now the bigger story? Read our earlier report on the discipline row here.