Saqib Mahmood ruled out for rest of season for England with stress fracture

England’s red-ball reset has hit a fresh setback with news that Lancashire’s Saqib Mahmood has been ruled out for the remainder of the season with a lumbar stress fracture.

Mahmood had missed Lancashire’s last three County Championship fixtures, and after complaining of back pain was sent for scans which confirmed a fracture. With England’s newly-appointed red-ball coach, Brendon McCullum, hoping to name a squad for next month’s first Test against New Zealand on Wednesday morning, the selectors’ task becomes ever more complicated as the list of injured bowlers continues to lengthen.

Along with Mahmood, McCullum will not be able to call on Jofra Archer, who has not played a first-class game for more than a year because of elbow injuries, Mark Wood, who hopes to return from his own elbow issue in the next few weeks, or Olly Stone, who has not played first-class cricket since sustaining his own stress fracture of the back last summer.

Matt Fisher, who like Mahmood made his Test debut during England’s unsuccessful tour of West Indies in March, has been sidelined ever since with something his Yorkshire coach, Ottis Gibson, described as “not a stress fracture, a stress reaction”. Sam Curran has publicly targeted the New Zealand series for his international comeback after a long-term back injury, but has so far bowled just 17 overs in four County Championship appearances.

The Guardian revealed last week that Durham’s Matthew Potts was among those pushing for a call-up to McCullum’s first squad. The team’s new captain, Ben Stokes, had already revealed that James Anderson and Stuart Broad, both controversially rested for the trip to the Caribbean, were certain to return.

Meanwhile the England and Wales Cricket Board are expected