England spinner Jack Leach is to have surgery on the left knee injury that cut short his tour of India.
The opening Test of the series was Leach’s first since missing the Ashes, but he suffered an injury in the field that caused severe swelling.
Leach completed the first Test, missed the second, then returned home and will have the operation on Tuesday.
“I’m going to have an operation to get the rest of the swelling out because it’s not budging,” said Leach.
This is another setback for Leach, who suffers from Crohn’s disease and missed the home series against Australia last summer because of a stress fracture in his back.
The 32-year-old feared for his life when he contracted sepsis on the tour of New Zealand in 2019.
Despite the knee injury, Leach was still able to bowl 36 overs in England’s superb first-Test win over India in Hyderabad, often in short spells.
“It was quite an unfortunate one,” Leach told BBC Radio 5 Live. “It was the second ball of the first innings in the field so that whole game I was playing with this knee problem.
“I obviously knocked it a few times throughout that game and it has just created a long period of recovery.
“I need to get the operation done and then hopefully I can get back to playing cricket. I’d love to have a run of playing cricket and getting into a bit of a rhythm again and hopefully that can happen again once I’ve got this sorted.”
England’s first Test of the summer is against West Indies at Lord’s on 10 July, while Leach’s Somerset begin their County Championship campaign away to Kent on 5 April.