EXCLUSIVE: Monty Panesar dropped from Essex squad after failing to turn up to team meeting



England spinner had been named in Paul Grayson's side

Essex face Glamorgan in four-day match at Chelmsford

Either Moeen Ali or Samit Patel are to pip Panesar to Test place



Monty Panesar ran into more disciplinary trouble at the worst possible time when he was dropped by Essex just as England selectors prepare to pick their team to face Sri Lanka in the first Test.

Panesar was left out despite being chosen on Saturday to play against Glamorgan in the Championship when he failed to turn up for a team meeting yesterday morning after ‘forgetting’ that it had been scheduled.

Essex were quick to stress that they did not consider the matter to be serious. But it was the latest and most untimely example of Panesar’s ability to run into the sort of trouble which saw him sacked by Sussex last season. Graeme Swann’s retirement has left England in desperate need of a quality spinner and Panesar, at 32, remains the best specialist option when they meet on Wednesday to consider their options for Lord’s on June 12.

Yet he is likely to be pipped for a place by an all-round option in either Moeen Ali or Samit Patel with England as concerned as much by Panesar’s temperament as his ability to bowl out Sri Lanka on what is expected to be a flat pitch.

VIDEO Scroll down to the bottom to see Panesar talking exclusively to MailOnline after his nightclub indiscretions last summer



Dropped: Monty Panesar has been left out of Essex's LV=County Championship game against Glamorgan

Oops: The left-arm spinner had been tipped for a Test return by some but should miss out to Moeen Ali

The suggestion at the start of this summer was that the new England regime were prepared to forgive and forget the past misdemeanours of Panesar, who lost weight in the winter after staying on in Australia after the Ashes to work on his game.

Yet, the noises emerging from Chelmsford suggest Panesar has been a handful this season. He was warned by his new county about his body language in an early Essex match and had a row with Derbyshire’s Billy Godleman that led to him being told to calm down by the umpires in a Championship game.

He was replaced by the promising leg-spinner Tom Craddock yesterday and must smarten up his act if he is not going to squander the chance Essex have given him to rebuild a career of such achievement before Swann usurped him.

Meanwhile, the man who played one of the great one-day innings at Lord’s on Saturday in England’s narrow fourth one-day international defeat is adamant that he is not yet ready to be considered by England for the two-Test series.

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Jos Buttler took England to within seven runs of their highest successful run chase in any one-day international on home soil with his sublime 121 from 74 balls against Sri Lanka but does not expect to play in the first Test next week.

‘I am probably not ready for that,’ he said. ‘I average 32 in first-class cricket and my glovework needs to improve, too, if I’m to play in Tests. I’m 23 and have time to work on these things.’

England’s first choice remains Matt Prior and all will depend on how he comes through Sussex’s Championship match with Nottinghamshire at Hove where the England vice-captain reclaimed the gloves yesterday.

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Prior’s chronic achilles condition has kept him out of four-day cricket ever since he scored a century for Sussex in their first game of the season and James Whitaker, the national selector, has insisted that England would not risk any player they deem not to be totally fit.

It now seems almost certain that, should Prior not be considered fully fit, England will turn to the man who remains one of the best wicketkeepers in the world in Essex captain James Foster.

Foster played the last of his seven Tests almost 12 years ago and his return now, at 34, would be a comeback almost as remarkable as Andrew Flintoff’s.