England have promoted leg-spin bowling all-rounder Rehan Ahmed to open the batting in place of Zak Crawley for the second ODI of their series against Sri Lanka.
England promote Rehan to open in second SL ODI
Rehan will open the innings with Ben Duckett when England begin their chase, after Sri Lanka won the toss and chose the field. He will be the second new opening partner for Duckett in as many games, after Zak Crawley was picked for his first ODI in two years in the opening match of the series on Thursday (January 21). Crawley was out for six off 11 balls in that match, which England lost by 19 runs.
Ahead of the second match, England announced that Crawley had suffered a knee injury, and would be replaced in the XI by Will Jacks, who missed the opening game through illness. Jacks has opened the batting eight times in ODIs, but hasn't done so since Brendon McCullum has taken over as coach. Instead of Jacks reprising his opening role, England opted to promote Rehan, who batted at eight in the first ODI and has a batting average in the format of 12.40 after five innings.
England have a surprise opener alongside Ben Duckett after Zak Crawley was ruled out of the second Sri Lanka ODI due to an injury 👀🏴#RehanAhmed #SLvENG pic.twitter.com/N5wppzhNd1
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) January 24, 2026
Why has Rehan been promoted over Jacks?
Top-order batting in international cricket is not a new role for Rehan. During his debut Test in Pakistan in 2022, Rehan came out to bat at No.3 in England's second innings as a 'nighthawk'. He then batted at No.3 in England's Test against India in Visakhapatnam in 2024. However, he has not previously batted higher than eight in ODIs.
Rehan's all-round credentials were bolstered over the 2025 English domestic summer after he was moved up to bat at No.3 in the County Championship for Leicestershire. He averaged 50.66 and scored five centuries batting in the top order during the season, and was a bit part of Leicestershire's promotion-winning campaign. England have often struggled with how best to use Rehan's all-round potential across formats, and trialling him as a specialist batter, with enough spin overs lower-down from Jacob Bethell and Jacks, alongside Adil Rashid and Liam Dawson, is another experiment for what his future role for England could be.
While promoting Jacks would have been the obvious swap for Crawley, slotting him in at seven reflects the wider role he's played under McCullum. Having batted in the top order in both T20Is and ODIs since making his debut in 2022, over the last year he's batted exclusively at No.7 in ODIs and no higher than No.6 in T20Is.
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