Patterson-White wins maiden England call in Test squad for South Africa
The allrounder, who bowls left-arm spin, is part of new head coach Stephen Fleming's first squad, which features no out-and-out spinner among its 15. Alongside Patterson-White, England's Test captain, Joe Root, Dan Lawrence and the returning Jacob Bethell offer part-time options.
With Bethell back in the fold after recovering from the knee injury that kept him out of the home Test series against Pakistan Test, ECB men's national selector Marcus North confirmed England will arrive in South Africa for the three Tests with decisions still to be made on the make-up of their top six. North also revealed Josh Tongue will miss the opening Test, which starts on December 17, for the birth of his second child.
Patterson-White's selection comes after an impressive season with Nottinghamshire, taking 42 County Championship wickets at 25.11 - the most for a spinner in Division One - along with a century. Rewarded with an ECB development contract last month, the 28-year old has subsequently leapfrogged Shoaib Bashir and Rehan Ahmed.
He has also usurped Somerset's Jack Leach, a fellow left-arm orthodox bowler who played the last of his 39 Tests in October 2024. Leach was not considered again by England despite their appetite for a spinner that would turn the ball away from South Africa's right-handed batters.
"Liam has performed very well in the last year or two for Nottingham," North said. "He's a left arm spinner... in terms of looking at that balance of the Test squad that we've selected, we rate Dan Lawrence very highly in terms of a batting allrounder that can bowl off spin. Obviously, we've got Joe Root, and we were looking for someone to spin the ball away from the right-hander.
"There's a lot of consistency with Liam and his bowling. We feel that's really matured over the last two seasons. He's got the ability to hold but also get into the game at the back end of the game as well."
North was speaking from Perth, where England held their selection meeting while the white-ball teams are preparing for series against Australia. Fleming flew in from New Zealand to join North, England men's managing director, Rob Key, and performance director, Ed Barney, with white-ball coach Brendon McCullum sitting in on the selection meeting to offer his insights as Fleming's predecessor.
Among the conclusions from the selection meeting was England's belief there will not much as much turn on offer as there was during South Africa's recent series with Australia, with England's opening two Tests being played in the Highveld, at the Wanderers in Johannesburg and Centurion's SuperSport Park, rather than Durban and Gqeberha.
As such, the balance of England's side remains up in the air and may only crystallise after their warm-up match in Durban. North gave no assurances that Bethell would return to his No.3 spot, after Jordan Cox impressed in his absence, and left open the possibility of Bethell or Cox opening the batting.
Sam Curran, who might have been included as a seam-bowling allrounder was unavailable for selection due to his wedding.
"I think it's fair to say that we're not walking in there with a locked in six," North said. "We're keeping our minds open.
"We've got a good preparation leading in to that first Test in South Africa. We know the players, the batters certainly that we've got in the squad gives us a number of different options."
The absence of Tongue for the first Test - he is also seeing a specialist in the UK for a bruised toe but is expected to be fine for the series - means England could lean on the 18-man Lions red-ball squad that will shadow the main squad in South Africa through to the end of the first Test. Among the six quicks that could come in for Tongue, four have Test experience, including Brydon Carse.
Carse is back available for selection having been stood down by England in the wake of an incident at a Derby nightclub in August. The Durham seamer was subsequently charged for bringing the game into disrepute. North confirmed England will seek to bring across "one or two players" to bolster the squad ahead of the first Test.
"It's obviously been a challenging time for Brydon. At times we haven't felt that the demands of playing international cricket and what he was dealing with was necessarily right for Brydon or for us.
"There have been several - numerous - conversations between us, being myself, Rob Key, other people at the ECB, with Brydon over this period. The conclusion is we feel that he's in a place where we can introduce him back into the England environment, and we feel the Lions is the right place for him to come.
"Come that first Test, with Josh Tongue unavailable, that will leave us with 14 players. And this is where I feel that [we can] use the Lions to to our advantage.
"We've got a very strong bowling group in that Lions programme, and that enables us to, no doubt, have a look at where they're at, under competition, under training. It enables us to be as informed as possible… we will bring one or two players across into that Test squad come that first Test."
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