England's Tim Bresnan out of New Zealand tour

England's Tim Bresnan has been ruled out of the tour of New Zealand with an elbow injury while wicketkeeper Craig Kieswetter was dropped from the one-day squad.

National selector Geoff Miller announced Thursday a 15-man squad for the three Test series, with uncapped Warwickshire seamer Chris Woakes replacing Bresnan, who has been struggling with a right elbow problem for over a year.

Miller hopes the Yorkshireman will be fit in time for a packed schedule on home soil later in the year that sees England staging a return series against New Zealand, the Champions Trophy and an Ashes contest with Australia.

Kieswetter who played in 34 successive one-day internationals until England's defeat by India in Mohali on Wednesday, was included in the original ODI squad for New Zealand.

But a run of low scores, as well as some indifferent performances with the gloves, have seen the Somerset man leapfrogged by county colleague Jos Buttler and Yorkshire's Jonathan Bairstow in the revised squad announced Thursday.

England have also added two players to their 50-over party in top-order batsman Joe Root and seamer James Harris.

Former England off-spinner Miller, explaining Bresnan's absence, said: "It's not necessarily an operation at this stage and we feel he'll be absolutely fine; our medical staff say he'll be fine for the (English) summer.

Turning to Woakes, a near like-for-like replacement for Bresnan in that he too is a useful lower-order batsman, Miller, in an England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) statement, said: "He is coming in for all parts of the New Zealand tour because he's shown with the (second-string England) Lions what he is capable of."

As for Kieswetter, Miller said he'd failed to make the most of his chances.

"Craig has had an extended opportunity in ODI and T20 cricket and while he has shown evidence of delivering performances on the international stage, we don't feel these have been consistent enough.

... contd.

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