Bairstow remains injury worry ahead of first Test in Sri Lanka

The wicketkeeper-batsman missed the final one-day international and the one-off T20I after turning his ankle playing football and will also sit out warm-up matches over the coming days

Jonny Bairstow remains a major injury concern for England ahead of next week's first Test against Sri Lanka.

The wicketkeeper-batsman missed the final one-day international and the one-off T20I after turning his ankle playing football and will also sit out warm-up matches over the coming days.

Captain Joe Root has conceded that Bairstow remains touch and go for the first Test, which begins in Galle on Tuesday, November 6.

"It's day by day with Jonny at the minute," Root said.

^{Jonny Bairstow is struggling with an ankle injury}

"He's actually made good strides in the last week or so and he's recovered a little bit quicker than we anticipated, but there's still a long way to go."

England have called up Surrey keeper Ben Foakes as cover, though Root has suggested that Jos Buttler will take the gloves in the event of Bairstow being unavailable.

"We'll have to wait and see, I think so but we're very fortunate to have a lot of resources in that department. Jonny would be a big loss but we've got some great players that can come in and rebalance the team," he said.

"Jos to keep is probably the likely scenario but the reason we called Ben up is he's a high quality wicketkeeper and gives us another way balance the side up. It's a nice position to be in having that.

"We'll see how things unfold in the warm-up games and how players go in those two games."

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